Mother’s Day has a special meaning for Ottawa REDBLACKS receiver Eugene Lewis.
Always has. Always will.
Until a few years back, though, he didn’t know how much it really meant to his mom, Regina Hughes – how she felt so connected to the day.
“Every year, I’d call her, I’d send her flowers, and she was always super emotional,” said Lewis. “Then she told me why, she told me the story. When I was born, on April 20, (1993), I was three months early. I had to be in an incubator. They let my mom take me home on Mother’s Day. So the day is special in her heart.”
Adding context to the story: Without transportation, she walked home an hour from Norristown’s Suburban Community Hospital with her baby cradled in her arms. A special memory. A special day.
The story of Lewis’ connection to his mother is heartwarming. The story of his relationship with his father, Eugene Sr. (Junie), is more complicated. But over the years, the pieces of the puzzle have been connected, their relationship has been strengthened. Through the good times and bad, Lewis has found love for those around him, especially his mother and father, who were never married.
He’s also found motivation and a drive that have made him an elite receiver. In his eight CFL seasons, he’s blown past 1,000 yards in receptions four times. Two other times, he would have had more than 1,000 yards, but injuries got in the way.
But let’s get back to his mother, a long-time nurse and caregiver in the Philadelphia area.
“My mom is my best friend, one of the people I could always confide in, talk to,” said Lewis, who has “Regina’s Son” tattooed on one of his fingers. “To me, she’s the best woman in the world.
“She’s got a big, big personality. If anybody needs something, she’ll help. If somebody needs to eat or needs a place to stay, she’s there. She’s got one of the biggest hearts. You have to be a special person to do what she does. The main thing for her was always to make sure her kids were successful. I would do anything for my mom. Anything she needs, she’s going to get from me.”
Regina grew up in Philly’s Roxborough area. Being the oldest child in a big family wasn’t easy; with that came a lot of responsibility. She was forced to grow up fast.
Asked about his mom’s hobbies, Lewis points out that Regina is a great cook. He lights up when he talks about her salmon cakes and pies.
“Everything I learned about cooking is from my mother,” he said. “As a kid, I used to watch her cook. My mom usually doesn’t let anybody in the kitchen while she’s cooking; she doesn’t want anybody getting in the way. But I could watch, and I knew how to get out of the way.”
When Lewis was young, his mom enrolled him in sports, mostly to try to keep him out of trouble. So many kids in the neighbourhood made bad decisions. Regina wanted Eugene to be different.
They moved around, and there were drugs, knives and guns in the neighbourhoods. But Lewis kept his focus mostly on sports. And he learned lessons that would do him well later in life.
“Even when you’re in a good area, there are still bad things that can happen; a lot of people don’t get that,” said Lewis. “It isn’t being in a good area or a bad area that matters. What matters are the decisions you make. I have a lot of friends who ended up in jail, I’ve had friends who ended up dying. A lot of it was the decisions they made or being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I knew I wanted more, I knew I needed more. I wasn’t perfect, but I always knew there was a bigger picture.
“My mother and father always told me, ‘We don’t want you to go through the same things that we went through. You’ve already seen the bad, so if you want better, it’s there for you.”
At the time, Eugene Sr. was struggling. A helluva athlete and a second-round selection by the Utah Jazz in the 1989 NBA Draft, he was devastated after being cut in training camp. His outlet became booze and drugs.
The crack epidemic was, at the time, very much a thing.
Said Lewis: “My mom would tell me, ‘I knew people who had everything going for them, everything was good. Then, a week or two after doing those types of drugs, they look like a completely different person; their whole life has completely changed.’ I had to deal with that with my father for a good majority of my young life. But my mom would never bash my father, she would never tell me he was a bad person, or that he didn’t deserve us. She’d say, ‘He’s going through something right now, and he doesn’t need to be around you.’ ”
To fund his addiction, Eugene Sr. would take the kids’ toys, gaming systems pots and pans, whatever he could get his hands on around the house.
“He might come in during the middle of the night, take a PlayStation and go sell it for a rock of crack,” said Lewis. ” You’d wake up and not know what happened, and we’d be trying to figure it out. As a kid, you don’t really understand. When you get older, you realize how bad it really was. My mom would hide it; she didn’t want us to know about it, she didn’t want us traumatized. She called the cops at one point, and the police told him not to be around or they’d take him to jail. My mom knew he had a good heart, but she knew the state he was in and didn’t want us to be around him.
“I knew he was a drug addict, but you don’t know how bad it is. When you’re seven or eight years old, you don’t understand it. There were times where my dad would pick me up and we’d end up being in crack houses and stuff like that that I shouldn’t have been in. There were times when there were gun shootouts in the middle of the street while we were walking around, and we’d have to duck behind cars. Thank God my mom didn’t know about some of the places he took me to at the time.”
But there was an awakening, a life-changing moment for the senior Lewis, who had moved a couple of hours northwest to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. The father went to rehab at the Salvation Army. Then, while attending church one day, he was struck by a sermon by Bishop Wallace E Smith.
“My dad said that changed him, it changed his life,” said Lewis. “He’d always had God in him. But he was able to discipline himself. He got married. My mom saw he was making positive changes.”
Eugene started spending time with his father in the summers. Then, when Lewis was 12, he moved to live with his father.
“First, (my mom) needed my dad to get there, to get to where he had gotten to in his life,” said Lewis. “She didn’t want to let go of her baby. There were some things my mom couldn’t teach me. There were some things I needed to see and hear from my father. My dad told my mom that when kids turn 13 or 14, they need a father figure. It needed to happen, but I didn’t know if I wanted to give my mother up; that was the hard part. Some people might say, ‘It’s not fair, you didn’t get to choose.’ But if I had gotten to choose, I might not have made the right decision.
“It was more strict with my father. With my mom, I could get away with certain things. With my father, if I messed up, even if it wasn’t my fault … it was my fault. I started to have more accountability. I realized I couldn’t make excuses, I had to be aware of my surroundings, I had to be sober about what was going on. That got me into locking in and focusing.
“I had chores, I was doing dishes, I was putting out the trash. When it snowed, I had to do the driveway. In the summer, I couldn’t go out on weekends until I cut the grass; and it had to be straight. If it wasn’t, I had to cut it again.”
The younger Lewis was a sponge; he was also a terrific athlete. He played football for Penn State from 2012-15, then transferred to Oklahoma in 2016. He was with the Montreal Alouettes from 2017-22, then spent two seasons in Edmonton, before joining the REDBLACKS as a free agent in 2025. With 47 touchdowns and 7,273 yards in catches, he’s a three-time CFL all-star.
“My dad was one of the main people who brought my competitive nature out in me; he was never easy on me,” said Lewis. “He would challenge me, he’d try to put me in an uncomfortable position.”
With a strong belief in God and with faith in his corner, Eugene Lewis Jr. uses all the tools he’s been given as he pushes ahead in his quest to be the best he can be. He wants to succeed, and he knows when that happens, it will help the REDBLACKS.
“I want to be great,” he said. “I want to win this Grey Cup, I want to help my teammates be successful. I want to make it to the Hall of Fame. You have to show up when it’s time to show up. You have to be able to go out and earn respect. My mom got me started in football to keep me out of trouble, and here I am today.
“I’m not everybody’s cup of tea; I’m one of the most elite competitors you’ll meet. Growing up, it was win, win, win. Somebody’s going to win, somebody’s going to be embarrassed. Which one do you want to be? I don’t like losing at Uno. If we’re racing to see who can drink the juice pouch the fastest, I don’t want to lose. I understand what comes from losing; I learn from it. But I hate losing more than I love winning. I hate to see people around me losing, too.
“I never wanted to be mediocre. I live to do great things; I live to help make other people great. I don’t want the bare minimum if I know I can do more. To be the best, you have to work harder than everyone. You have to do the extra stuff. You have to show you’re doing it for the love of the game, not for the money.
“It takes maturity and discipline to be successful. If you aren’t disciplined enough, there’s somebody who will work harder, somebody who wants it more than you. I always made sure I didn’t allow somebody to want it more than me.”
And there’s one more big message in all that Lewis does on the football field and the way he carries himself off it.
“I want to motivate kids,” he said. “I want them to know it’s not where you start, it’s where you finish. I’m a testament to this.”
On Mother’s Day, Lewis will send flowers to his mom, his everything. He’ll send some money – enough to get her nails done, maybe go to the spa and get pampered.
In 2021, Lewis took her to Miami, they visited Sea World, checked out some terrific restaurants, relaxed and enjoyed their time together.
They still talk nearly every day. And Lewis appreciates her honesty.
“My mom is a realist; she doesn’t live in a fantasy land,” he said. “She’ll tell me the raw truth; that’s how I like it. I like it when people are straight up. She’d tell me to prepare for the worst, hope for the best. But be your best to be successful.
Father’s Day won’t seem quite the same.
“It’s just different,” said Lewis, who is often called Geno instead of Eugene. “My dad was never really mushy-mushy; he was never that type of guy. There are things we disagree on, but we can agree to disagree. It’s more of a respect thing. When you’re dealing with him, it’s different. It’s hard to explain. But I’m super grateful for everything.
“I don’t take anything for granted. I have friends whose mothers or fathers aren’t around. Everything’s not always perfect. There are times I don’t want to talk to my mother or father. But I also realize someday they’re not going to be here.
“They made me, they helped me to get to where I am. I’m thankful to them for giving me life. My motivation, my love, my consistency and my sense of awareness come from them. They told me not to be selfish. They taught me about patience and being able to communicate.”
On Day One of training camp for the REDBLACKS, the players will have football on their minds. But, like Lewis, many of them will also be thinking about their mothers, there will be a lot of thankfulness from afar. And there’ll be a lot of love in their hearts.
There’s a quote that’s circulated through the years.
“Mothers hold their children’s hands for a short while, but their hearts forever.”
Truer words couldn’t be spoken.
