Max Duggan’s football story starts in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and it begins long before the pro game. He is now with the Toronto Argonauts, but the foundation of his career was built in a family that lived and breathed sports.
His father coached high school football in Iowa for 35 years, his mother ran track in college, and Duggan grew up around practices, locker rooms and game days from the time he was young.
The result was a quarterback who did not just fall into football, but grew up inside it.
Duggan put that background in plain terms when he explained how much his parents shaped him.
“I grew up in Council Bluffs, Iowa with my mom and dad and my older brother and sister,” he said. “My dad was a high school football coach in the state of Iowa for 35 years. He played quarterback in college. My mom ran track in college. So from a young age, I was always around ball.”
He added that being around teams and football people is what made him love the game in the first place.
The surgery, the setback and the college rise
The other part of Duggan’s story is the one that could have changed everything. He said that during his sophomore year of college, doctors found a heart condition he had since birth and that he went through a nine hour heart surgery.
“At that time, you might think that your football career might be over,” Duggan said.
Instead, he said he leaned on the people around him and learned to handle the hard parts of life without letting them take over the dream.
That resilience carried him through a major college career at TCU, where he played four seasons and became one of the most important quarterbacks in program history.
TCUlists him as a quarterback who threw for 9,618 yards and 73 touchdowns while rushing for 1,856 yards and 28 scores, and he helped lead the Horned Frogs to the 2022 College Football Playoff National Championship game.
He also finished as the Heisman Trophy runner up and won major national awards in 2022, including the Davey O’Brien Award.
After TCU, Duggan was picked by the Los Angeles Chargers in the seventh round of the 2023 NFL Draft. His pro path then moved through the next stages of his career before he landed with Toronto.
He signed with the St. Louis Battlehawks in December 2024, and the Argonauts list him under contract for 2026.
That puts him in a new spot now, trying to turn a college star turn and a few pro stops into something more stable at the quarterback position.
Duggan said the journey itself is what matters most. He talked about staying present, not getting too caught up in the future or the past, and valuing every chance to keep playing.
That fits the way his career has unfolded so far. He has been through surgery, pressure, benchings, big wins and pro transitions, and the through line has stayed the same.
The football came from home first, and the rest has followed from there.
