Steve Milton: Former CFLer straps on his helmet with SteelTown Jaguars at 59

After treating them to bowling and pizza the night before, on Saturday Darin Burns will follow 30 kids from the local Boys and Girls Club onto the football field at Cardinal Newman High School.

Then Burns will strap on his helmet and start on the defensive line for the SteelTown Jaguars against the Ottawa Sooners in the Hamilton semi-pro team's first-ever home game (6 p.m., tickets $10 for adults and $5 for kids) in the venerable Northern Football Conference.

Burns is 59 years old.

Already the only person known to play organized football in this country in six different decades when he returned to senior football in Moncton two years ago - Football Canada presented him with a framed citation - Burns wants to line up with the Jaguars until he's 61.

That was the jersey number of the late Bruce Smith, the 1972 Tiger-Cats Grey Cup winner. He turned Burns' life, shattered by child abuse, completely around in his early teens and became his mentor and guiding spirit.

I think I have a couple of more years in me," said the six-foot-five, 297-pound Burns who, fueled by anger from his childhood, was a dominant junior player for the old Burlington Braves of the late 1980s and was in CFL training camps with the Tiger-Cats, Ottawa Rough Riders and Montreal Alouettes. This is my way of saying thank you to Hamilton and Burlington for giving me a chance 37 years ago.

These kids will lead me onto the field and I hope to inspire them. There could be a couple of them who might want to play football or do something else in sports.

Deep down inside it makes my night."

Burns will play his first game back in the area since 1986, when he was team captain for legendary Braves coach Doug Trimble, his other longtime guide and role model.

Burns is raising money for Boys and Girls Club programs and asking for pledges (donate at https://www.bgchh.com/) for every one of his sacks and tackles. He dedicates each game to Smith.

He has a lot to celebrate - pushed by his son Taylor, an OUA all-star guard with the McMaster Marauders, he dropped 25 pounds and 12 inches off his waist three years ago so he could return to the field with a Moncton senior team, then played a game with his son; he led Moncton to the Maritime championship last year and led the league in sacks; he has successful real estate and gym businesses in Moncton which he may relocate to Hamilton; and above all he has shown resilience and a move-forward optimism in the face of unspeakable setbacks.

While there is so much to admire in the ultra-positive Burns' life, there is also much to grieve. But he now wants to talk about that publicly, because he thinks that can help young people who might be struggling silently, thinking they're alone.

When he was just four-and-a-half, Burns was left for nine days with brother Patrick, who was three years younger, after his parents left their Toronto apartment, each thinking the other had the kids.

When the (local authorities) caught me, I'll never forget, I was in the kitchen making an angel food cake and I had sh---y diapers all over the place," he said.

He and Patrick were billeted with relatives, but later spent time with their father. They were constantly being evicted and Burns says that in his early years he was raped dozens of times by male caregivers. He says he was beaten badly by his father; often ran away from group homes; and between kindergarten and Grade 9, he attended 27 different schools.

But football brought Smith into his life. In his early teens, Burns was hitchhiking home from a Toronto Argonauts' football camp in Etobicoke. Smith, then an Argo teaching at the camp and staying in downtown Toronto, drove him all the way to Mississauga. They began training together and Smith, who would later become a well-known pastor, got Burns a job and became his Big Brother. He also, Burns says with his voice breaking, was ultimately, like a father to me. I owe everything to him. I had no family. I had nothing. He was really the only person I'd had who showed me unconditional love."

Smith's insistence that athletes stand up for their communities was a big part of his late-middle-aged return to a young man's sport, and commitment to raising awareness about, and funds for, children at risk.

This comeback is not about me," Burns says. I want kids to know that s--t happens to us, and it's not just them.

I want to bring an awareness to child abuse. We need to create places where kids can have meals, feel safe, and just be a kid. That will improve a child's life, which will reduce homelessness and drugs. I know that's true because I've been on both sides of that fence."

At 19, Burns was in a dark place when football again brought a life counsellor to his doorstep. He'd left the Hamilton Hurricanes juniors, and was living alone in a Niagara Falls attic when Trimble asked him to come to Burlington, and he would make a star out of me.

I was alone and ready to check out but I went from being about to kill myself to becoming a star player. I would run through a wall for Doug Trimble."

Trimble, who spent 38 years as a Hamilton principal, didn't know about Burns' torturous upbringing until later, as they were becoming close friends.

I just knew he was a good football player," says Trimble, who was the best man at Burns' wedding. He was a great defensive end and long-snapper and led the league in sacks.

I admired his spirit, I admired that he didn't give up on life. A lot of people who've faced a lot less would have."

In two 1987 articles, The Spectator printed a picture of Burns signing an Alouettes contract in Trimble's office and wrote, Sack King aims for Major Gains; Life turns right for Darin Burns."

The article mentioned child abuse, but not the specifics because as Burns now says, it was a different era in sport and being raped by a male would have stigmatized him.

Trimble will be there Saturday, as will Burns' son Taylor, some ex-CFLers, and a number of former Braves teammates including Rob Tornifoglia, who is now the Jaguars' head coach.

He's still got it," says Tornifoglia . He's playing very well. I'm most impressed and so are the players. They listen to him and take his many, many years of knowledge seriously. They rally around him."

Sara Barrett, fundraising and communications coordinator for the BGC Hamilton-Halton, will also be there and salutes Burns' outlook and his commitment to raising funds for club programs.

Having them run on the field with him, Darin is trying to help provide opportunities for our kids through the sports and mentorship that he got from Bruce," Barrett says.

It would take a book to fairly describe all that has happened to Burns and what he has done to prevail and, in fact, there's an autobiography called Full Circle" in the works.

That title becomes even more poignant as he prepares for his first game here in 37 years.

It's definitely come full circle."

Steve Milton is a Hamilton-based sports columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: smilton@thespec.com