Paul McCallum (born January 7, 1970) is a former Canadian football punter and placekicker. McCallum had been a member of four different CFL franchises, one XFL team, an NFL Europa team, and a Scottish third division club. At the time of his retirement, McCallum was the oldest active player in the CFL, having played in 23 seasons over the course of his career.
Junior career
McCallum played junior football with the Surrey Rams of the Canadian Junior Football League. He was a member of the BC Junior Football League Champion Surrey Rams who faced the Ottawa Sooners at Lansdowne Park in Ottawa for the Canadian Junior Football League Canadian Bowl Championship, losing 35-18.
Professional career
Soccer
After a long youth soccer career in North Vancouver, Surrey, and Delta, BC, McCallum went on to play for Team BC at the Canada Summer Games as well as national tournaments with the BC Provincial program U16 (1985) and U18 (1986–1987). He also suited up briefly for the Vancouver 86ers for a preseason tournament (while in Grade 12 at Surrey BC's Queen Elizabeth Sr Sec.) in Kelowna, BC, and scored for the club there. McCallum travelled to Scotland at 19 years of age to play professional soccer in the Scottish Third Division for clubs St. Mirren and Hamilton Academicals. His cousin, Brian O'Neill, was also a professional soccer player for Celtic FC, Wolfsburg, Derby County, Preston North End, Nottingham Forest, and Aberdeen FC. Upon his return from the UK, McCallum started playing for the Surrey Rams Junior Football Club of the BC Junior Football League.
Early CFL career
In 1993, after playing soccer in Scotland he returned to Canada and began playing for the Surrey Rams Junior Football Club in the BC Junior Football League. McCallum petitioned the CFL to allow Canadian Junior players to have the ability to attend their evaluation camp. He was successful and was ultimately added to the Negotiations List of the Hamilton Tiger Cats by Director of Player Personnel, Greg Mohns and subsequently signed as a free agent with the CFL's Hamilton Tiger-Cats. After being released, he had numerous short stints with the Ottawa Rough Riders, (1992–1993) during his time there he was a teammate of former NFL Washington Football Club Dexter Manley and former WWE wrestler Glenn Kulka, BC Lions (1993,1994, 2006–2014, 2016) and Saskatchewan Roughriders (1994-1995, 1996–2005, 2015).
Scottish Claymores
McCallum once again travelled to Scotland to play professional sports, this time as the punter and placekicker for the Scottish Claymores of the World League, and was with the team when they won World Bowl 1996 at Murrayfield Stadium Sunday, June 23 where they beat the defending champions, Frankfurt Galaxy 32-27 in front of 38,982 fans. Other notable players on the Claymores roster included former Denver Broncos wide receiver Yo Murphy, former NFL quarterback Jim Ballard, as well as Scotland Rugby Union legend Gavin Hastings OBE.
Saskatchewan Roughriders
Prior to his spell in NFL Europe (1996) with the Scottish Claymores McCallum had been playing with the Riders, upon his return to Canada he resigned with the Saskatchewan Roughriders and tore his ACL early in the into the CFL season. After recovering he returned to play for the club until 2000 at which time he left to sign with the Las Vegas Outlaws of the XFL for their 2001 football season.
Las Vegas Outlaws
McCallum was the Las Vegas Outlaws' kicker during the XFL's only season in 2001, scoring the first ever points in XFL history with a 25-yard field goal against the New York/New Jersey Hitmen.
Saskatchewan Roughriders (II) After the XFL folded after its inaugural season McCallum returned to the Saskatchewan Roughriders. McCallum set a CFL record for the longest field goal kicked in the CFL when he booted a wind-aided 62-yard field goal against the Edmonton Eskimos on October 27, 2001 in a 12-3 victory at Taylor Field.
In the 2004 CFL playoffs, McCallum missed a crucial 18-yard field goal in an overtime game against the BC Lions. The Roughriders went on to lose the game, and outraged fans vandalized McCallum's northwest Regina home with eggs, dumped manure on his neighbour's property, and uttered death threats to his family. The incident made national news, and the football club and Regina's mayor Pat Fiacco both denounced the vandalism as an "isolated incident" of "hooliganism". On the comedy show This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Shaun Majumder (playing a Roughriders GM) apologized for calling McCallum "a bum who could be out-kicked by a goat missing a leg".