Keep your fingers crossed and hope these five guys are on the field for their respective teams when the CFL regular season kicks off one week from today:
TIMMY CHANG
Quarterback, Hamilton Tiger-Cats
CFL archetype fulfilled: The undersized quarterback who just loves to compete
Reason to cheer for him: The great CFL passers have always been guys who weren't the biggest or most bazooka-armed, but who could just flat-out play and spread the ball all over the field: Doug Flutie, 5-foot-10; Matt Dunigan, 5-11; Damon Allen, six feet. Going into the wayback machine, Tom Wilkinson was 5-10, and wasn't (everyone should be appropriately hushed) Ronnie Lancaster nicknamed "The Little General"? At barely six feet, after having been spurned by the NFL, which questioned his arm strength and his skills after he set U.S. college recrods in a run-and-shoot offence at Hawai'i, Chang is an underdog playing in an underdog city, Hamilton, Ontario. He put up 239 yards on 10-of-17 passing in his first exhibition game. Watching his Hawai'i teams play in some minor pre-New Year's Day bowl game was always a guilty pleasure
JEREMY STEEVES
Safety, Edmonton Eskimos
CFL archetype fulfilled: The hoser oddball and/or oddball hoser
Reason to cheer for him: Every CFL team must include one dude who embodies the league's appeal to weirdoes, since, let's face it, saying you like the CFL over that other "FL" south of the border is a sure way to get marked as a deviant, especially for anyone born after 1975 who hails from east of Thunder Bay. The 24-year-old Steeves, as the Edmonton Journal detailed last week, is that dude: He teaches yoga, doesn't own a car, and his long hair flounces out the back of his helmet. (Some would wonder why that's OK for a white kid of modest talent when The Troubled Ricky Williams got run out of football for the same traits, but let's leave that for another time.)
On top of that, Steeves can play. Flash back to 2001, when Blake Nill's Saint Mary's Huskies had the rest of their Maritime opponents totally overwhelmed, ringing up scores such as 79-4 and (infamously vs. Mount Allison) 105-0 on their way to the Vanier Cup. Steeves was a rookie defensive back for St. FX -- who lost their two games vs. SMU by a combined 110-10 score, and also gave Mount A their only win -- and at times he seemed like the true freshman was the lone defender the X-Men had. There's just something noble about that.
JON CORNISH
Tailback, Calgary Stampeders
CFL archetype fulfilled: The plaintive hope for a Canadian featured back
Reason to cheer for him: Cornish, of New Westminster, B.C., ran for 1,467 yards last season in big-time U.S. college ball with the Kansas Jayhawks, but the NFL took a pass on him since his time in the 40-yard dash was a garden-variety 4.62 seconds.
LORNE PLANTE
Offensive guard/centre, B.C. LIons
CFL archetype fulfilled: The O-lineman who marches to his own beat
Reason to cheer for him: The native Winnipegger has taken the long "rowt" to making a CFL roster. The 6-foot-6, 310-lb. Plante played only one season of university ball, found it wasn't for him, and like many a Manitoban, found that the Left Coast agreed more with his temperament.* Plante, with his Mohawk and multiple piercings, has been described by the Vancouver Province as looking like he "stumbled and fell into a tackle box," but the Lions seem to think he'll be able to help them in the tackle box, that flesh-filled five yards on either side of the ball where games are won or lost.
ANDRE DURIE
Tailback, Toronto Argonauts
CFL archetype fulfilled: The broken-field improv artist
Reason to cheer for him: First off, he's one of the only CIS stars to have highlight reels up on YouTube. Before his collegiate career ended with a thermonuclear knee injury in September 2005, Durie had the moves-on-top-of-moves game that conjures up people IM'ing links to one another with the line "you gotta see this." Plus he has the backstory that was the stuff bleeding hearts such as myself inevitably romanticize, how he'd grown up poor in a single-parent home, struggled to find himself off the field, failed to qualify academically to get into a U.S. school, become a father probably earlier than he would have liked and ended up at York as a 22-year-old freshman in 2003.
Then his knee was wrecked and it's taken almost two years to rehab, and Durie might never again be "faster than a marble down a drainpipe," as Mike Ulmer wrote four years ago. He ran only a 4.74-second 40 in March, which is why he slipped to the Argos as a free agent. Durie, almost 26, is actually older than another Argos running back, Bryan Crawford, who's entering his third CFL season, but there's a lot of people who like to imagine some football nirvana where he can show those moves again.
(UPDATE, June 24, 7:10 p.m. Durie will be on the Argos practice roster to start the season. So is former Queen's wideout Brad Smith.
* Spare the hate mail -- we spent two years in the Keystone Province and never had a better time professionally.)
That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.
TIMMY CHANGQuarterback, Hamilton Tiger-Cats
CFL archetype fulfilled: The undersized quarterback who just loves to compete
Reason to cheer for him: The great CFL passers have always been guys who weren't the biggest or most bazooka-armed, but who could just flat-out play and spread the ball all over the field: Doug Flutie, 5-foot-10; Matt Dunigan, 5-11; Damon Allen, six feet. Going into the wayback machine, Tom Wilkinson was 5-10, and wasn't (everyone should be appropriately hushed) Ronnie Lancaster nicknamed "The Little General"? At barely six feet, after having been spurned by the NFL, which questioned his arm strength and his skills after he set U.S. college recrods in a run-and-shoot offence at Hawai'i, Chang is an underdog playing in an underdog city, Hamilton, Ontario. He put up 239 yards on 10-of-17 passing in his first exhibition game. Watching his Hawai'i teams play in some minor pre-New Year's Day bowl game was always a guilty pleasure
JEREMY STEEVESSafety, Edmonton Eskimos
CFL archetype fulfilled: The hoser oddball and/or oddball hoser
Reason to cheer for him: Every CFL team must include one dude who embodies the league's appeal to weirdoes, since, let's face it, saying you like the CFL over that other "FL" south of the border is a sure way to get marked as a deviant, especially for anyone born after 1975 who hails from east of Thunder Bay. The 24-year-old Steeves, as the Edmonton Journal detailed last week, is that dude: He teaches yoga, doesn't own a car, and his long hair flounces out the back of his helmet. (Some would wonder why that's OK for a white kid of modest talent when The Troubled Ricky Williams got run out of football for the same traits, but let's leave that for another time.)
On top of that, Steeves can play. Flash back to 2001, when Blake Nill's Saint Mary's Huskies had the rest of their Maritime opponents totally overwhelmed, ringing up scores such as 79-4 and (infamously vs. Mount Allison) 105-0 on their way to the Vanier Cup. Steeves was a rookie defensive back for St. FX -- who lost their two games vs. SMU by a combined 110-10 score, and also gave Mount A their only win -- and at times he seemed like the true freshman was the lone defender the X-Men had. There's just something noble about that.
JON CORNISH Tailback, Calgary Stampeders
CFL archetype fulfilled: The plaintive hope for a Canadian featured back
Reason to cheer for him: Cornish, of New Westminster, B.C., ran for 1,467 yards last season in big-time U.S. college ball with the Kansas Jayhawks, but the NFL took a pass on him since his time in the 40-yard dash was a garden-variety 4.62 seconds.
LORNE PLANTE
Offensive guard/centre, B.C. LIons
CFL archetype fulfilled: The O-lineman who marches to his own beat
Reason to cheer for him: The native Winnipegger has taken the long "rowt" to making a CFL roster. The 6-foot-6, 310-lb. Plante played only one season of university ball, found it wasn't for him, and like many a Manitoban, found that the Left Coast agreed more with his temperament.* Plante, with his Mohawk and multiple piercings, has been described by the Vancouver Province as looking like he "stumbled and fell into a tackle box," but the Lions seem to think he'll be able to help them in the tackle box, that flesh-filled five yards on either side of the ball where games are won or lost.
ANDRE DURIE
Tailback, Toronto Argonauts
CFL archetype fulfilled: The broken-field improv artist
Reason to cheer for him: First off, he's one of the only CIS stars to have highlight reels up on YouTube. Before his collegiate career ended with a thermonuclear knee injury in September 2005, Durie had the moves-on-top-of-moves game that conjures up people IM'ing links to one another with the line "you gotta see this." Plus he has the backstory that was the stuff bleeding hearts such as myself inevitably romanticize, how he'd grown up poor in a single-parent home, struggled to find himself off the field, failed to qualify academically to get into a U.S. school, become a father probably earlier than he would have liked and ended up at York as a 22-year-old freshman in 2003.
Then his knee was wrecked and it's taken almost two years to rehab, and Durie might never again be "faster than a marble down a drainpipe," as Mike Ulmer wrote four years ago. He ran only a 4.74-second 40 in March, which is why he slipped to the Argos as a free agent. Durie, almost 26, is actually older than another Argos running back, Bryan Crawford, who's entering his third CFL season, but there's a lot of people who like to imagine some football nirvana where he can show those moves again.
(UPDATE, June 24, 7:10 p.m. Durie will be on the Argos practice roster to start the season. So is former Queen's wideout Brad Smith.
* Spare the hate mail -- we spent two years in the Keystone Province and never had a better time professionally.)
That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.
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1 comment:
When you've got a guy who can go 90 yards on a simple dump pattern to a running back, you have a) a very special athlete who is b) playing against inferior competition. That's the whole, "man playing against boys" scenario we often see in minor football. It's great when you have the dominant kid on your roster, making you look smart as a coach, but not so great when its your players being made to look silly by a generic lottery winner on the other side.
As great as Durie looks on that film, I'm just saying that you can't do the kinds of things he was doing there against pro competition. He'll have to earn more of his yards the old fashioned way in the CFL, but needless to say I'm intrigued as hell now to see if he can do it.
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