Late Bloomer, Eh?

It’s only a few days before the big game that leads to the bigger one, and Daved Benefield is stressing.

“No, don’t do that,” Benefield admonishes before returning to the phone. “I just got a puppy and he and the cat are trying to figure each other out.”

On this rainy day in Vancouver, Canada, Benefield can play referee. He’s home on a day off from the British Columbia Lions, who host Calgary for the Canadian Football League’s Western Division title on Sunday.

The winner advances to the Grey Cup, the CFL’s Super Bowl, on Nov. 28 at Vancouver. The Lions are looking for their sixth appearance and first since 1994, when they defeated Baltimore, 26-23.

They are within striking distance partly because of Benefield, who developed from obscurity at Glendale College to prominence at Cal State Northridge to stardom with the Lions.

Benefield, 6 feet 4 and 231 pounds, is a candidate for the division’s most outstanding defensive player award. He has 47 tackles, two interceptions and nine sacks, fifth in the league.

He is listed as a defensive end, but Benefield said it’s just semantics.

“I’m a pure outside linebacker right now,” Benefield said. “More like a Lawrence Taylor. I drop [on pass coverage] and I rush a lot.

“I’ve been pretty lucky this year. I’ve been running to the ball and good things have happened.”

Benefield, 31, always tries to leave his mark.

Consider the name. Although in constant danger of being misspelled, it’s an identity trait and a good conversation piece for Benefield, whose given name is David.

“I just got bored one day in junior high and I started writing it like that,” Benefield said. “I did it just to be different. I’m an eccentric. An ex-girlfriend said I was a Bohemian.”

He might not be that extreme, but Benefield dwells in a realm rarely frequented by football players. He paints, reads and writes poetry, reviews films for a Vancouver cable station and likes to cook.

“We thought he was going to be the artist in the family,” said Betty Benefield, Daved’s mother. “It turns out his sister [Davida] is the artist.”

And he is the unconventional one, with a daredevil streak that drove him to bungee jumping and motocross riding and snowboarding.

“I used to go bodysurfing at Zuma,” Benefield said. “People used to trip over seeing [an African-American] showing up at the beach.”

Benefield’s exploits have left people wide-eyed for some time.

He arrived at Northridge in 1988 as an average safety out of Glendale, where he spent two years after graduating from tiny Maranatha High in Sierra Madre.

“He came into our program kind of unheralded,” said Jim Sartoris, Glendale’s athletic director and former coach. “He was a high achiever who just kept getting better and better.

“He was a late-bloomer.”

The Matadors moved Benefield to linebacker and he flourished, leading the team with 65 tackles and five interceptions in 1989, his senior season. The players voted him the team’s defensive player of the year and he was selected All-Western Football Conference.

“It was a good experience,” Benefield said. “I wanted to go someplace to find out if I was a player or not. I still follow Northridge.”

Benefield didn’t let his success with the Matadors go to his head.

“I’m normally lost out on the field,” Benefield said his senior season. “Everyone says, ‘Daved, why are you lost?’ Sometimes it’s like I’m losing my mind. . . . I do a lot of things I shouldn’t. I read different people and I look in the backfield too fast. But it works.”

All the way to the pros.

Benefield signed as a free agent with the CFL’s Edmonton Eskimos in 1990, was released after camp and spent the next three seasons with the Ottawa Rough Riders, becoming an all-star in 1994.

He played with British Columbia in 1995, making 37 tackles, and spent 1996 with the San Francisco 49ers.

“I felt pressure [in San Francisco] with so many great players around,” Benefield said. “It was like a year of uncertainty. I never really planned on playing pro football and then to be playing with all those guys you’ve watched on TV. I was so concerned about screwing up.”

Benefield returned to the Lions in 1997 and is now one of the CFL’s top players.

“People tell me I’ve got NFL tools and I appreciate that,” Benefield said. “But I like the CFL because it seems everyone is from the same background. The guys from the small schools who never really got the chance in the NFL are getting the chance here.”