On the first day of September, in a long 2010 they will never forget, the University of Waterloo Warriors football team was in London, Ontario for the first game of the OUA season.

They were spectators. Just like anyone else who paid admission and sat on the cold, metal stands at TD Waterhouse Stadium, they watched. Their season had been scrapped before it even began. A steroid scandal, the worst in Canadian university history, had tarnished the program. Four players admitted to using performance enhancing drugs. Three others tested positive. One simply declined testing and left the team. Another was arrested for possession and trafficking of banned steroids and was placed under house arrest. The university came down forcefully, shuttering the program for the entire season. Scores of players young and old left the school to play elsewhere, leaving about 50 of their teammates behind.

It was those 50-odd players, many of them in their first years at Waterloo and not even knowing the guilty players who came before them, who sat and watched that day in September as Western pummeled Laurier 46-1 in their season opener.

Two weeks ago, it was Waterloo’s turn. Back in London, this time for the start of the 2011 OUA season, the Warriors played their first football game in 712 days at the same stadium where they sat as spectators a year prior. Dennis McPhee, the Warriors’ head coach, had taken his team to London that day because he “had an idea this might happen.” This, is opening the season on the road in one of the most hostile venues in the province against the defending conference champions. And the Warriors would not have had it any other way.

Waterloo lost that day 86-22, scoring three more touchdowns than Laurier had mustered a year earlier but also surrendering more than a point per minute. But this year for the Waterloo Warriors the scores don’t matter. Playing football does.

“Just getting back on the field and playing in the CIS is a victory in itself. Regardless of what the record shows this year,” said Bob Copeland, the director of athletics at Waterloo and a former member of the Warriors football team himself. “My goals are to get back on the field with integrity, to see the players improve and thrive and to support them — it sounds Pollyanna but it’s true.”

There isn’t a better word for what’s happening around the Waterloo Warriors right now than that — Pollyanna. Positive thinking. Idealism. There aren’t many other choices for a team that — if the first two games of the season are any indication — is not going to be particularly good this season. A week after the drubbing against the Mustangs the Warriors opened their home schedule with a 65-13 loss to the Gryphons — a team that had scored just eight points the week prior against Ottawa.

The Vanier Cup is the goal. It has to be when you’re playing university football in Canada. But this year is different. There is another focal point for this team and you just have to read the language on the Warriors website like “moving the program forward” and “starting a new chapter” to figure it out.

Of course, turning the page on 2010’s lost season extends past the rhetoric and into the physical shape of the program as well. There is the brand new field turf at Warrior Field; a $2 million investment funded in thirds by the school and both the provincial and federal governments. There are a bevy of new athletic scholarships, created by the school to help fuel recruitment. And there is a pair of PED task forces, one of which is done in conjunction with the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport which originally busted the Warriors program for doping last spring.

“We’ve taken a leadership role in addressing PEDs on major task forces. Our athletes are involved and engaged. We’re trying to move forward as best we can,” Copeland said. “Once the review was done and the coaches were exonerated, it was ‘get right back in the saddle and let’s get this program going again.’”

It’s true — after the scandal the field did not sit barren and the locker room did not fall quiet. In fact, at this time last year the Waterloo Warriors football team was hard at work.

Three days a week the 50 players who remained, most with zero university football experience, assembled on campus at 7:00 in the morning to lift weights, run through drills and keep their minds on football. Every day McPhee and his coaching staff focused on a different phase of the game — pass rush, route running, coverage — with every member of the team taking part in drills regardless of position. There was no game to play, no opponent on the horizon and no bulletin board material for inspiration. But none of that matted to the Warriors — just 50 young football players without a season.

“They basically had an hour and a half three mornings a week breaking the game down into its different phases and training that way,” McPhee said. “We are going to prepare these kids the best we can for everything. The kids are eager to learn.”

It was all building up to this season’s training camp which was unlike any other McPhee has run with just nine out of the 99 players in camp having any football experience at the university level. On defence alone, the team had a total of just 34 man games of experience and every game this season, the Warriors dress 36 freshmen on their 47-man roster.

“You try to tell them what they’re in for,” McPhee said of the three quarters of his roster that had never set foot on a CIS football field before this season. “They’re learning how to practice. And they’re learning to walk before they run. But we believe that our kids are highly intelligent here.”

McPhee said he was impressed with the ability of his rookies to pick up new concepts and complex schemes in a short amount of time. The coaching staff hasn’t taken it any easier on the team, changing systems and strategies every week in anticipation of that weekend’s opponent.

It’s what his players came to Waterloo expecting after a vigorous off-season of recruiting that saw McPhee and his staff bring in more players than any other year in the program’s history. They were given more athletic scholarships to use to entice players to come to the school. Also, Copeland and Waterloo president Feridun Hamdullahpur both personally took part in recruitment. The team even had Eric Polini, a 22-year-old former linebacker who was one of the players using steroids in 2010, join the process and speak to recruits about his experience and the mistakes he made.

“[Recruits] really respected the transparency,” Copeland said. “It was quite impactful.”

But one of the biggest moves Waterloo made during it’s extended offseason was retaining McPhee and his entire coaching staff from before the suspension, something many players said was imperative to whether they would return to the program or not. That includes Joe Paopao, the team’s offensive coordinator and an ex-CFL head coach; Marshall Bingeman, a former Warrior himself who coaches the offensive line; and Kani Kauahi, an 11-year NFL veteran who coached with Paopao in the CFL.

“Some people would have just run for the exits when this thing happened,” Copeland said. “This was very difficult on the coaches because they are so close with the athletes. Losing a season, getting put on administrative leave, having major reviews conducted. It was pretty stressful and I’m really proud of how the coaches managed it.

“These are guys that have lots of different opportunities. They can coach anywhere they please.”

You could see it — the adoration and respect for this Warriors coaching staff — in the eyes of Greg Marshall, the head coach of the Western Mustangs when he spoke to reporters after his team nearly tied an OUA scoring record against Waterloo two weeks ago.

“It’s hard. There’s no joy in that,” Marshall said after the game, shaking his head. “Those coaches over there are good friends.”

Waterloo’s games will not be pretty this year. The Warriors will certainly miss the playoffs; they may not even win a game. But taking some lumps is just part of the process of pressing restart on a football program. What’s important is that it’s near impossible to find a single individual in the OUA who does not think Waterloo is headed in the right direction.

This is just the first step.

Published on CFL.ca August 25

Even though her son Jabari moved out years ago, Genise Arthur has diligently maintained his small trophy case in her Montreal home.

There are the countless trophies from when Jabari was young, playing minor football in Montreal and through the CEGEP system. A bit further down are the gloves he wore when he caught his first NCAA touchdown for the University of Akron.

Next to those are a different set of gloves, the ones Arthur wore when he set a Motor City Bowl receiving record in 2005, hauling in eight passes for 180 yards and two touchdowns to break the bowl record previously held by Randy Moss.

And last week Jabari stopped by to drop off one more memento for Genise to proudly display on the mantle — the ball he caught for his first CFL touchdown.

“She was excited about that,” the Stampeders wide receiver said after practice earlier this week as Calgary prepares to host the Alouettes this Saturday. “She took the ball and put it right there on the mantle — next to a picture of my dad.”

The trophy case is a crowded piece of real estate — but for all the awards and souvenirs on the mantle, that picture may be the most important. Arthur’s father, Hollis, succumbed to cancer nearly a decade ago after a long career as a welder.

Arthur dedicated his first college touchdown to Hollis and when he hauled in a 23-yard pass for his first professional touchdown on Aug. 12 vs. the Roughriders he said that one was for his old man as well.

Trophies and records are great — but it’s the moments like those Arthur savours most.

“When it’s all said and done, those are pivotal moments of my career and it will be nice to look back on,” Arthur said after returning home to see family during the Stampeders’ bye week. “There’s a whole bunch of good memories.”

Arthur is simply hoping the good memories keep coming after his break-out game against the Roughriders when he caught seven passes for 92 yards in the most productive 60 minutes of his four-year CFL career.

Simply getting to this point has been a lengthy journey as Arthur has taken a winding path to the pros over the last four seasons and is just now becoming a consistent threat at wide receiver.

Arthur was Calgary’s first-round pick in 2007 but opted to return for his senior year at Akron where he set school records with 184 receptions and 2,653 yards. He then spent most of what would have been his rookie CFL season in 2008 south of the border trying out for the Kansas City Chiefs.

Arthur was one of the final cuts at the Chiefs training camp and joined the Stamps in September; he appeared in just four regular season games — mostly on special teams — and dressed for the West Final and the Stampeders’ Grey Cup win but rarely saw the field.

Arthur was expected to see more game time in 2009 but a broken foot sidelined him before the season even began. Then mid-way through the year he was dealt to the Blue Bombers as part of a six-player deal that included Odell Willis. Winnipeg re-evaluated Arthur and determined he needed surgery on his foot, immediately putting an ending his season.

Arthur started 2010 with the Bombers looking to make amends for 2009’s lost season but found himself released in July as Winnipeg simply ran out of room on its roster. That’s when the Stampeders called and offered Arthur a position on the practice roster and the opportunity to compete for a backup role at wide receiver.

Arthur earned a spot and finally, more than three years after he was drafted, caught his first CFL pass on Aug. 15, 2010, a seven-yard reception against the Eskimos.

It would take two weeks for the next catch and another two weeks for his third, but slowly Arthur started building momentum, seeing more of the ball and showing flashes of the potential that made him a first-round pick.

That momentum reached a pinnacle against the Roughriders two weeks ago when Arthur put up 92 yards, just two shy of his entire receiving yardage from 2010. Now, with four frustrating years of starts and stalls behind him, the trick is to keep the momentum going.

“I wouldn’t say I’ve had a bad luck career, but I did have a few setbacks in the beginning,” Arthur said. “But now that I’m healthy and everything is coming together I’m definitely excited to see where I can take this. Hopefully it continues for the rest of my career.”

No one doubts Arthur’s ability to forge a successful career and so far in 2011 he seems to be putting the pieces together. In just three games this season Arthur has already eclipsed the passing totals he put up in 14 contests last year. And at 6’4”, 219 lbs., he has been a physical threat in close quarters in the red zone.

But maybe Arthur’s most valuable trait sits above his broad shoulders. The 28-year-old is a converted quarterback, forced out of his job under centre after his second year at Akron and pushed into a role as a receiver.

The transition was uneasy at first as Arthur had never played an offensive position other than quarterback and was accustomed to reading every element of every play on every down. But that initial awkwardness turned out to be a blessing in disguise as his football acumen became a dangerous weapon in his new role as a receiver.

Now, every time he looks at a play or a route, Arthur’s mind immediately fills with the possibilities the opposition can use to defend it. While a simple crossing route is just that for a purebred receiver, the route becomes a complex game of chess for Arthur who is constantly searching for the small layer or hole in a defence that can be exploited.

That’s why quarterbacks like Arthur so much — he thinks the same way they do and always finds his way to the best possible position.

“I’ve really continued to learn the playbook as a quarterback,” Arthur said. “It helps when you’re trying to think about what the defence is doing and knowing what kind of different routes you can run against them. It makes you more versatile.”

Versatility, ability, intelligence — these traits have never been an issue with Arthur. Durability, on the other hand, has so far been the Achilles’ heel to his career.

There was the entire year missed with a broken foot in 2009 and this season there was the nagging hamstring injury that held him out of action until late July. That’s why Arthur hardly hesitates when asked what he needs to do to continue to have success this year.

“The biggest thing for me is to stay healthy,” Arthur said. “My goal every year is to try to get a little bit better and try to get on the same page as everybody else. So obviously when you’re not healthy that can’t happen.

“That was a major setback when I broke my foot. That was really bad. But I came back in last year and got involved a little bit with the offence and I’m healthy this year and so far it’s coming together.”

It might be the only thing between Arthur and a bigger trophy case.

Published on MLB.com Aug. 1

TORONTO — J.P. Arencibia can’t predict the future — he was simply being facetious.

It was just over a month ago in St Louis when the Blue Jays were in town for a three-game Interleague series. A young Cardinals center fielder by the name of Colby Rasmus walked to the plate for his ninth inning at-bat after Arencibia had checked into the game as Toronto’s catcher the inning prior.

“Hey man, you going to come play with us one day?” questioned Arencibia with a chuckle from behind the plate.

Rasmus flashed a smile and shrugged it off, digging his left cleat into the dirt as he readied to face then Toronto closer Frank Francisco with his team down by one. Francisco delivered a 95 mph fastball up in the zone — hitters delight — and Rasmus got a hold of it, rocketing it to right field with his classic, smooth swing.

But as has been the case in this hard luck season for Rasmus, the ball hung up just long enough for Blue Jays outfielder Jose Bautista to track it down and catch it on the run, leaving Rasmus with a 1-for-4 on the night.

Little did Rasmus know, just a month later he would be wearing the same uniform as Arencibia and Bautista, and turning to them for advice.

“I was just messing around,” Arencibia said of his chirp to Rasmus last month. “But then the trade happened and now he happens to be on our team.”

Yes, much to Arencibia’s surprise, Rasmus is today a member of the Blue Jays, acquired last week from the Cardinals and expected to be a part of the franchise’s core for several years to come. Arencibia, in his rookie season, has been the unofficial ambassador thus far, helping Rasmus get accustomed to life with the Blue Jays in Toronto.

Arencibia and John Jay — a teammate of Rasmus’ in St. Louis — are best friends, both growing up playing baseball in the Miami area. They work out together in the off-season and Jay had told Arencibia about Rasmus’ exceptional talent years before he became a Blue Jay.

“He told me he’s a great kid and an unbelievable player,” Arencibia said. “He said he’s got ability through the roof.”

Bautista — an American League MVP candidate — has been lending his hand too, offering hitting advice to Rasmus as he faces American League pitching regularly for the first time in his career.

“Jose has been talking with me about some things that I think are going to help me,” Rasmus said. “And J.P. has kind of made me feel welcome and tried to relax me a little bit which has helped.”

It’s the kind of affable, accommodating environment the Blue Jays are hoping to foster for Rasmus after he fell out of favor in St. Louis following disagreements with his coaches. It’s the least the club can do considering how hard they worked to bring him to Toronto.

Blue Jays general manger Alex Anthopoulos had inquired about Rasmus regularly throughout 2010. He pestered Cardinals G.M. John Mozeliak with hypothetical after hypothetical, trying endlessly to find a combination that would bring Rasmus to Toronto.

The answer was always unequivocally no — Rasmus was not for sale. But that was only until the afternoon of July 26 when Anthopoulos sent yet another message to Mozeliak, telling him he might be able to deliver the starting pitcher he had coveted in the form of Edwin Jackson from the Chicago White Sox. Mozeliak’s harsh stance against trading his former top prospect lessened slightly, which was all Anthopoulos needed to hear.

The 34-year-old general manager was so anxious after the significant breakthrough that he did not get to sleep until 3 a.m. that night, his mind spinning with the possibility of finally landing another core piece to his franchise.

“We’d asked about this a lot in the past. We asked about him a lot last season. And the answer was always no,” Anthopoulos said. “I’ve been after Colby for a while.”

But despite all the anticipation, the very first days after the trade did not go as smoothly as planned. The youngster has been on edge since arriving in Toronto, a bundle of nervous energy as he tries to get acclimated to a new clubhouse, a new city and, really, a new chapter in his career.

The term “fresh start” was thrown around repeatedly by both Anthopoulos and Rasmus when he arrived in Toronto. And what better place to start anew than in a completely different country.

“It’s a lot different,” Rasmus said of the clubhouse atmosphere in Toronto versus St. Louis. “Maybe a little less pressure-packed.”

That’s been part of the allure of Canada and the Blue Jays organization for a number of young players that Anthopoulos has brought in over his first two years as general manager. Yunel Escobar was acquired from Atlanta where he was derided as being a flashy, selfish player that did not respond well to coaches. Similarly, infielder Brett Lawrie was brought in from Milwaukee where he butted heads with Brewers management over his position and how much time he would spend in the Minors.

But despite leaving their previous organizations on bad terms, both players are currently thriving in the Blue Jays organization. Escobar is Toronto’s leadoff hitter and has posted a .462 on-base percentage in July which is the second best mark in club history. He’s on pace for the best statistical season of his five-year career and has shown flashes of defensive brilliance at shortstop.

Lawrie, meanwhile, is the jewel of Toronto’s Minor League system, batting. .357 in 66 games with Triple-A Las Vegas and, not so much knocking on the door, but barging his way in to the conversation of a big league call-up.

Neither of those players were thought of as long term fits in their previous organizations but now Anthopoulos sees them as core pieces to the successful franchise he’s trying to build in Toronto. And the young general manager is hoping Rasmus can be the next piece of that nucleus.

“We’ve done a lot of homework [on our players,]” Anthopoulos said. “When we got Yunel from Atlanta we really unearthed a lot of things and we felt that in a certain environment he was going to thrive. We think Colby is the same way.”

Anthopoulos is not only confident Toronto provides that environment, he’s confident that his new center fielder’s behavioral troubles are behind him. Shortly before his exit in St. Louis, speculation was rampant that Rasmus had stopped listening to his coaches and that there was a particularly strong rift between him and Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa.

But Anthopoulos is willing to overlook all of that. He had a brief conversation with Rasmus last week about his issues in St. Louis, one of the first chats he had with the left-handed hitter when he arrived in Toronto. Anthopoulos calls it “the elephant in the room conversation” and he had similar ones with Escobar and Lawrie when they were acquired. But once that chat is done Anthopoulos won’t ever bring it up again. The book is closed on any rough history.

“We all have warts. I have them. Everybody in this room does. And sometimes they get magnified. But it all comes down to, what kind of human being are they? Are they a good person?” Anthopoulos said. “If you’re a good person deep down to the core you’re going to be fine. It’s just a matter of us getting the best out of you.”

And Anthopoulos vehemently believes that Rasmus is a good person, just like Escobar and Lawrie before him. He’s hoping that putting Rasmus in a young, easy-going Toronto clubhouse can only help him relax and feel more like himself.

“It’s a young clubhouse, it’s very laid back. I think a lot of these players love coming to Canada to play,” Anthopoulos said. “We have a great group of guys who embrace players that come in here.”

Arencibia is one of those guys and has taken Rasmus under his wing in these tentative first days, showing him the ropes in Toronto’s clubhouse and helping him take the edge off. Rasmus was admittedly nervous upon arriving in Toronto and although he had only ever spoken to Arencibia once before — at home plate in St. Louis — he was at least somewhat of a familiar face.

“I knew him only a little bit but it helped,” Rasmus said. “Not knowing anybody. Not knowing the coaches. I just wanted to make a good first impression.”

Rasmus’ nerves carried over to the plate, where he started his Blue Jays career 0-for-13 with six strike outs. But he finally showed signs of coming into his own Sunday, with a pair of hits and two RBIs in a 7-3 win against the Rangers.

“Those first couple days it was definitely a little nerve wracking. I wasn’t able to do some of the stuff I wanted to do,” Rasmus told a large collection of media after Sunday’s game. “But today I felt a lot better — hopefully that will continue.”

For Rasmus, the past is in the past and the present is getting better as the Blue Jays head out on the road for a week away from the media spotlight in Toronto. Now all he has to do is play.

TORONTO — If there was one clear indication Wednesday that Toronto will be a fresh start for Colby Rasmus, it was when Blue Jays manager John Farrell told him he wants to bring his father Tony into discussions about his hitting.

Rasmus, just 24-year-old and oozing with potential, was practically run out of St. Louis, where he began his career with the Cardinals, in part because of his father who was seen as a meddling bad influence on the young center fielder.

Rasmus was accused of not listening to the Cardinals coaching staff and siding with his father who allegedly did not agree with the direction the Cardinals were sending him in.

But now, Rasmus’ father will be a welcome part of the dialogue as the Blue Jays try to get his career back on track in a new city, a new country and a new uniform.

“The one thing that we do know is Colby’s dad has had a lot of experience with him. He knows his swing. Colby spoke openly about that,” Farrell said before Wednesday’s 8-2 Blue Jays win over the Orioles. “And we want to do what’s right by Colby.”

What a world of difference for this former first round pick who was practically told in St. Louis that either his dad goes or he goes.  Rasmus dug in his heels, sticking to what he thought was right and eventually it was him who went, traded to Toronto Wednesday as part of a blockbuster eight-player trade.

For his part, Rasmus downplayed the influence of his father, saying repeatedly that he was just focused on playing good baseball and not concerned with any outside distractions.

“I don’t think that needs to be a big issue really,” Rasmus said when asked about his father’s role in his career. “My dad coached me all the way growing up. He has a big interest in my baseball and wants me to play good. He knows my swing pretty well so I don’t think it should go any further than it is what it is.”

Rasmus has been coached by his father since he was eight-years-old and played for him at Russell Country High School in Seale, Alabama where he won a national high school championship in 2005. Rasmus was the team’s star pitcher and broke an Alabama state record that year with 24 home runs sunder the tutelage of his father.

Farrell wants to tap into that instruction and learn the ins and outs of exactly what Rasmus was taught, all the way down to what specific terminology was used.

For Farrell, it’s all about providing as comfortable of a situation as possible for his new center fielder.

“There’s a lot of familiarity there. That’s obvious.  I think it’s just being prudent on our part to find out what that means,” Farrell said of the instructional relationship between Rasmus and his father. “I think it’s important for us to find out either the terminology or the specifics to his swing that he’s been accustomed to describing in a certain way.

“We’re all products of nature. We’re all products of a past where certain terms and certain terminology means certain things. And for the matter of clarity and consistency, I think it’s our responsibility to find out what some of those terms mean and how they’re played out.”

Farrell said he has experienced similar situations in the past where consulting an individual who has had a big effect on a young baseball player’s career can be a positive tool for getting the best out of the player.

Farrell did not go into specifics, but said he has been down this bumpy road before and has learned from his experiences.

“You recognize that players have individual needs,” Farrell said. “The most important thing is that there’s a consistent message. Players get lost in the mix a little bit when you have a different message being delivered by multiple people.”

All of that is well and fine for Rasmus who hopes to block all of this out and get back to simply playing baseball every day. The 24-year-old has struggled through his third big league season, batting .246 with 11 home runs and 40 RBIs in 94 games after back-to-back impressive seasons to begin his career.

Rasmus is admittedly shy and says he would prefer to fly under the radar during his time in Toronto while he tries to get his game back on track.

Of course, he knows that is likely far from possible.

“It’s alright. I feel like I can handle it. I’ve got an idea of what I’m going to try to do as far as playing-wise and dealing with some of the stuff,” Rasmus said. “I don’t really prefer the limelight. But it’s part of the job so I’m going to do my best to handle it and play baseball.”

Certainly things will get easier after Thursday when Rasmus attracted large media gatherings both before and after the game and seemingly had a camera on him at all times throughout the day.

Rasmus said the intense attention threw him off his routine and contributed to his 0-for-5 night at the plate in his Blue Jays debut Thursday night.

“I didn’t really feel too comfortable at the plate but I guess that’s to be expected,” Rasmus said with a shrug. “With all the stuff going on, my mind was a little all over the place. I couldn’t really relax and settle down — my mind was everywhere. That was a little tough to deal with.”

But this is baseball and tomorrow is a new day with a new team, a new series and a new set of at-bats to try to right the ship.

Spending the better part of his Thursday nervously fielding questions about his father, his game and his tumultuous relationship with the coaching staff in St. Louis — Rasmus always had one thing on his mind.

“I’m ready to play and play hard,” Rasmus said. “I think tomorrow will be a good day.”

Published on CFL.ca July 29

Calmly placing his feet in the starting blocks under the hot New Mexico sun, track star Chris Williams lowers his head to check his foot placement and pauses for a silent, serene moment of reflection.

It’s 2004 and the 17-year-old Williams, the defending New Mexico State champion in the 200m dash, is about to reclaim his title with ease. Later, the athletic star at Rio Rancho, New Mexico’s lone high school will also win the state high jump competition and be a part of the Rio Rancho Rams state champion 4×100-metre relay team.

At the time, there were just around 50,000 people in the small city just north of Albequrque which housed a large Intel Corporation plant and not much else.

There was just the one high school in 2004 but Williams put it and Rio Rancho on the map with his prodigious speed both on the track and the football field. Standing barely over five feet and a half, Williams was symbolic of the small town, struggling to make a name for itself in virtually the middle of nowhere.

Williams carried much of that weight and it may very well have been what he focused on as he patiently knelt in the starting blocks in the sweltering New Mexico heat. Safe to say, the very last thing on his mind was Hamilton, Ontario.

But now, a mere six years later, that’s where Williams finds himself, plying his trade for the Tiger-Cats in the Canadian Football League, some 1,800 miles from Rio Rancho which has nearly doubled its population since 2004 and is now one of New Mexico’s fasted growing communities.

So you can’t really blame Williams for doing a double take when a football outlet from some place called Hamilton called him up last year, figuring he would be a good fit for head coach Marcel Bellefeuille’s high octane offence.

Forget finding it on a map. Williams couldn’t find Hamilton in the realm of consciousness.

“I can’t lie about that. I never even knew Hamilton was a place until they called me up and wanted me to come down last year,” Williams said of Canada’s ninth largest city. “But man, I really like it out here.”

The Tiger-Cats  certainly like it too as Williams has gone from not even getting a sniff of the ball in the team’s season opener to currently presiding as the team’s most prolific receiver just three weeks later.

He leads all Tiger-Cats receivers with 16 receptions, 250 yards and three touchdowns through the team’s first four games, although Williams has piled up most of his numbers in the past two weeks alone since being called on to replace injured wideout Aaron Kelly.

Williams was a training camp afterthought, barely considered for a starting position as Kelly and fellow rookie Bakari Grant battled for the lone free position in the Tiger-Cats receiving corps.

Now, barely a fifth of the way into the CFL season, Williams is suddenly the league’s breakout player and further solidifies his position in the Tiger-Cats lineup with each passing week.

“There’s a lot of good players on this team. I was just able to come in here and keep it going,” Williams, who started running track and field when he was eight, said. “You always want to think that you’re going to be the starter when you’re coming in — I was always working towards that. I didn’t know when it was going to come or if it was going to come but that was always the goal.”

One of the reasons he was looked over in the preseason was no doubt his size, a non-issue for Williams that nevertheless comes up wherever he goes. The 24-year-old is listed generously as 5’9″, 155 lbs. — inflated measurements that still make him the smallest man on the team.

Kelly and Grant, meanwhile, are both well over six feet and fit the more traditional mold of which cupboards a wide receiver should be able to reach.

But Williams does not play like a small man and certainly does not talk like one either. The questions about his size follow him everywhere he goes but Williams will never shy away from answering them.

“I know it looks funny — a little guy out there running around breaking tackles and stuff,” Williams said with a chuckle in his distinctively southern tone. “It’s just one of those things that’s going to come up. It doesn’t matter how big you are. You can or you can’t play. That’s the bottom line.”

It’s that stubborn, determined attitude that has allowed Williams to fit right in with the Tiger-Cats and the workman city they play in.

Hamilton isn’t Canada’s most glamorous city and the Tiger-Cats aren’t Canada’s most glamorous football team either. For the most part it’s a roughshod collection of misfits and cast-offs from other teams — a unique outfit of CFL wanderers who didn’t fit in with other squads.

The quarterback, 32-year-old Kevin Glenn, holds the notorious distinction of being traded by two teams in one day and was simply asked to leave by his most recent team, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, after twice losing his job to backups.

The team’s biggest star, the contentious receiver Arland Bruce III, was run out of town just up highway 401 in Toronto after a very public and messy falling out with then Argonauts head coach Bart Andrus.

Earlier this year, Bruce suggested publicly that his production was down because he wasn’t being thrown the ball enough. He would sit out Hamilton’s next game with a curious knee injury.

And then, of course, there is Williams who parlayed his exceptional track speed over to football at Rio Rancho where he starred as a running back and kick returner. He rushed for over 2,000 yards in his senior year, racking up 33 touchdowns — including three on kick returns — in just 11 games while being recruited to play college ball close to home at New Mexico State.

Once he hit the NCAA he was immediately converted to a receiver and set New Mexico State records in 2006 with 92 receptions and 1,425 receiving yards.

He also led the entire NCAA in receiving yards per game that year with 117.9 and followed it up with another solid season in 2007 when he was a finalist for the Biletnikoff Award which is given to the country’s top receiver.

But all of those yards, all of those accolades and a sizzling 4.28 40-yard dash time in his draft year could not quell the doubts about his size and Williams was completely overlooked in the 2009 NFL Draft.

He would land a tryout with the Miami Dolphins later that year in May, lasting just four months before he was released in August after he broke his hand. He would land on the Cleveland Browns practice roster three months later but was released again, this time after just nine days with the team.

Then came a quick stint in the United Football League that ended in yet another release last September. That was when the Tiger-Cats called and Williams learned that Hamilton was not only a city, but one with a football team that had a practice squad spot for yet another misfit looking for somewhere to play ball.

The rest, you could say, is very brief history.

“We just work hard out there. I think it models the city, the way our team plays. It’s just a bunch of hard working guys trying to get better,” Williams said.

“We’re trying to build an identity and build a way of playing. We did have a rough start but we were playing the right way.”

The Tiger-Cats, who have not had a winning season since 2004, were not exactly turning heads with an offence that scored just 26 combined points in back-to-back losses to open the 2011 campaign.

But the most recent two weeks have been a different story altogether as the team has piled up more than 30 points in a pair of dominant wins that has the squad just a game out of first in the CFL’s East Division.

A lot changed for the Tiger-Cats after those first two weeks, not the least of which was the fact the team started throwing Williams the ball. After just three receptions in week two against Edmonton, Glenn found Williams five times in week three against the Roughriders, including two for touchdowns as part of a dominant 33-3 Tiger-Cats victory.

So naturally, after a performance like that, Glenn looked for Williams as early as possible against the Lions in week four, on their first play from scrimmage, in fact. What happened next was likely the most exciting play yet of this young CFL season.

Lining up on Glenn’s right side, Williams dashed eight yards down field before stopping suddenly and turning back towards his quarterback. Glenn delivered the ball right in the number 80 on his chest as two Lions quickly converged on Williams.

But the compact receiver swiftly lowered his shoulders and burst forward as the two defenders slid off him and collided in his wake. Williams looked up and saw Lions defensive back Ryan Phillips, who lunged at his shoulders and ripped at the ball.

But Williams calmly spun around and sent Phillips flying to the grass, momentarily landing on the Lions defender before springing back up and taking off.

Then it was simply a dash for the finish line, not unlike so many that Williams ran on the hot New Mexico track in high school. Improbably enough, Williams was caught on the 10 yard line — it’s been a while since his last race, evidently — but it set up the Tiger-Cats first score in an important 39-31 win on the road.

“I was just trying to take advantage of the moment. They didn’t really do a great job of wrapping me up and getting me to the ground, so I just spun and kept going,” Williams said. “You’ve got to be smart about when you do stuff like that. But the opportunity presented itself.”

It’s just the latest in a string of opportunities that have presented themselves to the small kid out of a small town in New Mexico. And once he explodes out of the starting blocks, there’s no looking back.

Walking in to the Fighting Irish locker room at Vancouver College, it’s unavoidable. Dotted along a wall of the decades old club house is a vast collage of 8 ½ x 11 pictures of every young man who once laced up his cleats in that room and currently plays football in the NCAA, CIS or the CFL.

At first, the display was intended to be a novel motivation technique — but the coaching staff at Vancouver College is quickly running out of real estate.

“It’s half a wall — it’s big,” explains Todd Bernett, the current head coach of the storied high school football program in west Vancouver which just celebrated its 81st year with a provincial championship. “That does a lot to create the excitement that ‘I could be the next one.’”

The next ones, evidently, continue to pour out of the hallowed halls at Vancouver College where they will be adding seven faces to the wall next season as they graduate six players to the CIS and one to the NCAA. That’s not to mention a pair of former Fighting Irish who are joining CFL rosters this year. And from there the numbers only get more staggering.

In total, 125 football players have graduated from Vancouver College to play in the CIS while 47 others have gone south to play at colleges in the United States. Thirty Fighting Irish have been drafted into the CFL in the last three decades alone with ten going in the first round.

Presently, there are seven Vancouver College alumni on CFL rosters, joining a total of 49 former Fighting Irish who have played in the CFL. Every Canadian team has had an alumnus take the field at one point or another and since 1998 only one team has won the Grey Cup without a Vancouver College graduate on the roster — the 2008 Calgary Stampeders.

Add in former BC Lions President and Canadian Football Hall of Famer Bob Ackles plus the 11 former and current Fighting Irish coaches who have played in the CFL — including hall of famers Grover Covington and Greg Kabat — and the list of football alumni is as impressive as you’ll find at one single school on this side of the border.

Vancouver College isn’t a football factory — it’s a football gold mine.

“We have a very high commitment level and very high expectations of what we ask our kids to do,” Bernett, who joined the staff at Vancouver College in 1999, said. “So when they go to play CIS or even NCAA they aren’t overwhelmed by the commitment asked of them. Part of getting to the CFL is just finishing playing. A lot of guys [in Canada] end up going to CIS schools but they play two, three years and then they burn out. Our guys finish.”

The one thing they all have in common

Bernett’s professional-style program demands more out of its players than arguably any other high school in the nation ­— regardless of skill level. There are no cuts at Vancouver College and any player who can show up to practice wearing pads and cleats can make the team.  All Bernett will ask is one simple yet consuming core requirement — unwavering commitment to the program. To meet his standards means living and breathing Fighting Irish football. It means surrendering your mornings, afternoons and nights to practice, film study, weight training and anything else that ultimately improves the team. It’s the one thing Bernett asks for above all else — devotion.

Of course, the players get a tremendous amount of return for dedicating the majority of their time outside the classroom to the team. There’s the sprawling, state-of-the-art weight room and new artificial field, both multi-million dollar facilities built within the last three years with the help of alumni donors. There’s the large, veteran coaching staff with a proven track record of turning athletes from any sport into next-level football players. And, of course, there’s the network.  Vancouver College alumni are littered across the CIS and Bernett has deep connections with several recruiters and coaches at schools throughout the United States and since 2002 has sent 12 players to NCAA schools to play football.

Offensive lineman Peter Dyakowski was one of the first players Bernett helped sign with an American college, sending out hundreds of VHS tapes to schools south of the border and eventually landing the big Vancouver native at Louisiana State University. Dyakowski would go on to win a national title with LSU in 2004 and, after trying out for the NFL’s New Orleans Saints, signed with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats who drafted him in the second round of the 2006 CFL Entry Draft. Not bad for a guy who hadn’t played a down of football in his life until he got to Vancouver College.

“Coach Bernett sent out a huge amount of tape on me. I owe him a massive debt of gratitude,” Dyakowski said from Hamilton’s 2011 training camp as he prepares for his fifth season as a pro. “He put in a ridiculous amount of work helping me get recruited. He does the same thing for all the kids that come through there. It’s impressive and it’s great to have a tradition like that.”

Even still, the most astounding fact about Vancouver College might not be the abundance of players that move on to the pros, but the percentage. Vancouver College’s graduating class was around 160 this year, with more than half those boys being academically inclined and not nearly as interested in athletic pursuits. That leaves Bernett and his coaching staff with a crop of just 40 to 60 willing, athletically-motivated individuals to build a team from in each graduating class. And most of them don’t even begin playing football until they get to the school.

Vancouver-native Brody McKnight was a soccer player when he arrived at Vancouver College as a 13-year-old. Bernett turned him into a kicker and eight years later the Alouettes made him the eighth overall pick in the 2011 CFL Entry Draft.

Alexander Robinson, a defensive lineman drafted by the Argonauts in the third round of the same draft, was also a soccer player and hadn’t touched a football when he came to the school in grade eight.

Even Joseph Malabuyoc, who signed with the Tiger-Cats this year after going undrafted, was a sprinter and sometimes baseball player when he was growing up. That was until Bernett took him in and turned him into a linebacker who led the Fighting Irish in tackles in his junior year and was named the defensive MVP of the conference as a senior.

“Some of the kids who do end up playing are not that special — some of them are not that good,” Bernett said frankly, calling the limited football experience of most of his recruits his biggest challenge. ”On a varsity team of 50 players we have a wide range of abilities, but the one thing they all have in common is devotion and that’s really all I care about.”

A higher standard

A dogged devotion to the program is undoubtedly the most important element of playing for the Fighting Irish, but it’s just one of a number of attributes needed to play for the ever galvanizing Bernett.

“Bernett … set the highest standards with respect to training, practicing, studying film and performing on game day,” said Rob LeBlanc, a 2001 Vancouver College grad who won a Grey Cup with the Eskimos in 2005. “The whole culture — as well as the tradition — sets a high standard to strive for excellence. Not just on the field but around the whole person.”

Bernett, an American, first heard about the program himself in the late 1990’s when he was playing quarterback at Eastern Washington University. Bernett was dating a Canadian at the time, Andrea Prout, whose interest was sparked when Eastern Washington signed a young Canadian running back by the name of Mike McKenzie from a Catholic school called Vancouver College.

Bernett and Prout took McKenzie under their wing during his rookie season, inviting him to Prout’s apartment for Canadian thanksgiving and helping him get accustomed to life in another country. It was at that dinner table where McKenzie told Bernett about the football passion at Vancouver College and the American collegiate-like atmosphere around the program. Bernett was intrigued and when he moved to Vancouver with Prout to get married, he immediately applied for a job at the school. He had to wait two years for something to open up and taught at St. Thomas Aquinas in North Vancouver, coaching girl’s basketball in the meantime. He jumped at an opportunity to join the school in 1999 and took over the football program three years later. Prout also joined the faculty to teach sciences.

“I learned about Vancouver College quickly — we had a long conversation about what a storied program it was and how devoted people were to it,” Bernett said.  “It’s been interesting being here for the last 12, 13 years. It’s played out exactly the way I would have imagined in terms of the commitment from the community.”

Those are the type of stories that make Vancouver College’s lore so exceedingly fascinating and movie-like. The school’s narrative is laced with similar tales but maybe no CFLer knows the history and culture of Vancouver College quite like Angus Reid who is entering his 11th year with the BC Lions and his ninth straight as the team’s starting centre.

If you trace his lineage back far enough, you’ll find Reid is actually the grand nephew of Jimmy O’Hagan — the school’s first ever graduate and the namesake for O’Hagan Field where the Fighting Irish play their home games. O’Hagan was chosen as the school’s first graduate in 1925 when the school Principal at the time lined the entire graduating class up by height and chose Jimmy to go up first because he was the shortest.

Of course, Reid — all 6-foot-1, 305 pounds of him — probably wouldn’t have won that competition. But when he arrived on campus in 1982 Vancouver College was simply a no-nonsense, all-boys Catholic school with a good but not great football team.

“It was all about being disciplined. It was a tough, tough way to go to school. You were hard-nosed,” said Reid, who played 142 consecutive games for the Lions from 2002 through 2008. “It was just a bunch of kids who had a tough Catholic education and they got the best out of you when it came to athletics.”

But by the time Reid was ready to graduate, Vancouver College began to emerge as a true football factory. The school’s football program had always been successful, but in 1985 when Paul Dal Monte took over as head coach, something changed.

During Dal Monte’s ten years the Irish won two provincial championships including 1994 which stood as the last time the team won the province until this year when Bernett and company captured the title.

“When Dal Monte came in as head coach, you could see right away — football became a powerhouse almost overnight,” Reid said. “We always had good players in school. But from ’85 on, the athletes really started being churned out. It was a combination of the athletes being there and then a coach coming in that really made the program professional.”

Dal Monte’s tenure as head coach was the catalyst that began Vancouver College’s assault on the professional ranks as player after player found their way to successful college careers and shots in the pros.

Along with Reid, Dal Monte and company were responsible for the development of Sean Fleming who won three Grey Cups over 16 seasons with Edmonton and holds practically every Eskimos kicking record.  Vince Danielsen who graduated in 1989 and played eight seasons as a receiver with the Calgary Stampeders, winning the Most Valuable Canadian award at the 1998 Grey Cup. And Bryan Chiu who was named a CFL All-Star seven times and won two Grey Cups while playing centre for the Montreal Alouettes and currently serves as the offensive line coach for the Concordia Stingers.

“When I was at school there, the biggest thing was seeing the older guys ahead of me that went on to play at the next level. The Flemings, the Danielsens — those type of guys,” said Chiu who graduated from the school in 1992. “I had a lot of guys to look up to. … The alumni would always come back and check in on the younger guys. Whether it’s to stop in and say hi or tell a story or whatnot. There’s a bond there and guys never seem to forget that.”

It’s true — it would not be unusual for a current student at Vancouver College to look over in the weight room and see a CFL veteran lifting dumbbells next to them. Virtually all of the school’s alumni who go on to play professionally stop by when they’re in the neighbourhood and some even make a habit of conducting their off-season training at the school’s state-of-the-art facilities.

“I saw that and I said ‘hey, this is possible,’” Dyakowski said. “I really looked up to the players. Maybe if I had gone to a school where they didn’t have that strong connection I might not have seen playing in the NCAA or CFL as a plausible goal.”

“It mattered that much”

Today, Vancouver College is a destination for any college football coach, recruiter and scout from across the country looking to bolster their lineup. The school has always fed players to the west coast universities like Simon Fraser and the University of British Columbia, but now Vancouver College grads are dotting rosters from coast-to-coast. The school will send six football players to CIS schools for the 2011 season, not to mention seven athletes in other CIS sports including three rowers and two swimmers.

This year’s starting quarterback Jeff Tichelman — an undersized pivot who boasts a 94 per cent average academically — is off to McGill to play for the Redmen. Nick Blanchette, who protected Tichelman on the offensive line, was recruited to play at Bishop’s in 2011 against Chiu’s Stingers in the Quebec league. Sean Mayzes played both ways and returned kicks for the Fighting Irish and is one of the Queen’s Gaels’ top recruits this year.

Meanwhile, linebacker Charlie Thorpe and running back Adam Konar are both staying close to home, committing to UBC for the 2011 season. In fact, Konar — the MVP in this year’s provincial championship — will become the third boy in his family to play football for both Vancouver College and UBC.  His father Kevin Konar played linebacker for ten years with the BC Lions and he’s even a cousin of Jamie Boreham, another Vancouver College grad who has been a kicker in the CFL since 2001.

That’s not to mention Christian Covington, the team’s standout defensive tackle and son of Canadian Football Hall of Famer Grover Covington, who is headed to Rice University.

“I think we are in a window right now where a lot of things have gone our way and worked out well for a lot of our kids,” Bernett said. “Each one of them is a unique, separate story, but the one thing they all have in common is they made the decision to devote great amounts of time and energy into this and that’s what has got them to where they are now.”

Another thing they all have in common — each one has squared off against the cross-town rival Notre Dame Jugglers for the Archbishops’ Trophy. Played annually since 1957, the game is easily the biggest event on the high school football calendar in British Columbia.

Vancouver College won 27-6 this year under the lights at Empire Stadium giving the Fighting Irish seven Archbishops’ victories in a row and ten of the last eleven as the team has begun an era of dominance in the rivalry not seen since the 1970’s when it was Notre Dame who won seven straight. Any such streak is strange considering the all-time series is remarkably even at 27-26-1 in favour of Vancouver College.

The game has lost some of its luster over the years as the Fighting Irish begin to forge rivalries with other teams around the province, like The Terry Fox Ravens, the top ranked school this year until Vancouver College beat them in the provincial championships.

But it isn’t an Archbishops’ Trophy game without a prank and there’s no shortage of mischievous tales to be told around CFL locker rooms. Like in 1991 when some members of the Irish went to Notre Dame in the middle of the night and assembled an elaborate cemetery in the school yard with a crucifix for every member of the Jugglers’ starting lineup bearing their name and R.I.P.

“You know the way it is in late October — it’s misty and foggy. They rolled into school and that’s what they saw,” Reid, who was in grade 9 at the time, remembered. “It was healthy. It was just part of the rivalry that people helped create. … There were some big time things people used to do because it mattered that much.”

It’s the truth — nothing seems to matter more at Vancouver College than football where year after year there’s more pictures to  hang on the vast locker room wall. At the going rate, Bernett and his staff may need to find a bigger wall, but they would never get rid of it. The alumni display is just as essential as every other little detail that sums together to create the Fighting Irish legacy.

“It’s very important. As a coaching staff, we are constantly connecting back to past players and using whatever we can to get the best out of our players,” Bernett said. “We tell them ‘you remind us of this guy or we think you could be the next that guy.’ It’s an easy and logical way to give a player a picture of who we feel he could become. It also gives them a living, breathing goal that they can work towards.”

It’s just another small cog in the vast, intangible Vancouver College legend.

Published June 13 on MLB.com

TORONTO — Carl Crawford, as shy and quiet of a star as you’ll find in the Major Leagues, is uneasy with the amount of reporters crowding his locker on a cool Sunday morning in Toronto. He shuffles on his feet, scratches his head, laughs apprehensively and nervously knocks over a pair of bats leaning against his locker.

The 29-year-old has been able to keep a fairly low profile on the Red Sox current nine-game, three-city road trip which is ideal for Crawford who shies away from the spotlight whenever possible. He anxiously wants to go to go to the cages and lay into some batting practice pitches, protected from the media spotlight under cover of the batting practice netting.

But that cover will have to wait momentarily, as everyone wants to know his thoughts about returning to the sunshine state.

“It’ll be cool to go back and see everybody again,” the unassuming Crawford told a dozen reporters when asked about returning to Tampa Bay for a three-game series starting Tuesday. “I’m just going to treat it like another road trip.”

But for Rays fans and Red Sox fans alike — this is nothing close to an average road trip.

Crawford, of course, spent the first 9 seasons of his Major League career with the Rays, helping the team to the World Series in 2008 before the club and the player divorced in 2010 when the organization simply could not afford to continue paying him for his services.

The Rays didn’t even bother to offer Crawford a contract this past offseason as a gaggle of Major League suitors lined up to try to entice him to join their operations. The Los Angeles Angels showing some of the most aggressive interest, but ultimately Crawford landed in Boston with the Red Sox, staying in the pressure-cooker American League East where four out of five teams routinely finish with records above .500.

“I definitely didn’t want to leave the AL East. I have a sense of comfort here,” Crawford said. “Being in the same division — you know the pitchers, you know the stadiums.”

Familiarity, it seems, was important for Crawford as he prepared to sign what will likely stand as the longest, most lucrative deal of his career. But that familiarity has not been on his side so far, as Crawford has suffered through an extended early season slump in 2011 and struggled to find his stroke at Fenway Park.

Surely Crawford never thought coming to play in Boston’s century-old ball park would be an issue. The 29-year-old was a .275 career hitter (88-for-320) at Fenway Park when he played for the Rays, clubbing four home runs, 24 doubles and 35 RBIs in 76 games.

But compare that to a .246 average in Crawford’s 30 games at Fenway as a member of the Red Sox this year and clearly something has gone awry. The production is still on track as Crawford has one home run, seven doubles and 14 RBIs in less than half as many games at Fenway as he played with the Rays. But the hits are down which is concerning for a player whose speed doesn’t matter if he’s not getting on base.

There was any number of factors for Crawford’s early season struggles. Some called it just a routine slump, while others blamed the pressure of moving to a fast-paced, baseball-mad market from Tampa Bay where life is considerably more relaxed.

But one of the main factors was undeniably playing at Fenway where the fans are loud and the early-season weather is less than ideal for a kid who was born in Houston and spent the last decade of his life in Florida.

“It’s no secret — it’s warmer [in Florida] and it’s cold in Boston. It’s always nice when I’m in the sun,” Crawford said. “But you still have to play — everybody’s in the cold. I think at the time, I was going through so much other stuff that the cold definitely didn’t help.”

It is more than a relief, then, that Crawford returns to sunny Florida this week to play a three-game series against his former team. Back in the sun, Crawford is hoping he can continue his recent tear — he’s hitting .302 with 2 homers and 10 RBIs in his 10 games in June — and even turn the volume up a notch at a domed ballpark where Crawford has always felt comfortable.

Crawford is a.304 hitter in more than 600 games at Tropicana Field, the indoor home of the Rays. Obviously the bulk of his career totals have come under the Trop’s arching roof just based on the amount of games he’s played there but his best averages have come there as well.

In the 9 ballparks where Crawford has played 35 games or more in his career, he has put up his best averages in batting (.304), on-base percentage (.345) and on-base plus slugging percentage (.804) at Tropicana Field. Even his batting average on balls in play — the percentage of times Crawford has made contact with the ball and been credited with a hit — at the Trop is higher than the other eight parks, with a .338 mark which suggests his luck in St. Petersburg is more favorable than in other confines.

Crawford has also had decent luck in Boston where he career BABIP is .317, but standing in left field at Fenway Park wearing a Red Sox uniform can be a lot tougher than wearing one with Rays across the chest. The microscope hanging over the Red Sox at all times is incredibly fine and the pressure is amplified when playing in front of the boisterous denizens at intimate Fenway.

“It’s a little bit different,” Crawford dryly said of playing at Fenway vs. Tropicana Field. “There was a lot of adjusting to everything.”

The fans were sure to remind Crawford at every step this season of his slow start, one of several on the team as the Red Sox limped out of the blocks and lost 10 of their first 12 games.

Of course, Crawford has always been a bit sluggish out of the starting gate, notching a .267 career batting average in April while hitting .297 or higher in each month from May through to the World Series. More than anything, Crawford’s slow start was par for the course in a typical season for the tattooed slugger.

But as Crawford quickly learned in 2011, he definitely wasn’t in St. Petersburg anymore. This was Boston, home of some of the most passionate, fierce and vitriolic fans in the league — a market where both successes and failures are blown up to magnificent proportions.

Hitting .155 in April isn’t the sort of thing that goes unnoticed.

“The first month was a struggle,” Crawford’s manager Terry Francona understated this past weekend. “But I think the rest of the way we’ll get Crawford — which is good.”

Crawford — as Francona coins it — would refer to the aggressive swinging four-time All-Star that has hit over .300 five times and led the League in triples and stolen bases four times in his 10 Major League seasons. It’s the five-tool outfielder who can cause havoc on the basepaths at the top of the lineup with his .335 career on-base percentage or drive-in in runs in the heart of it with seven straight seasons of 55 RBIs or more.

But what the Red Sox have gotten so far this season — in return for a seven-year, $136 million investment —has been nowhere close to what was advertised.

For Crawford, the year started with a fizzle as he struck out three times in the season opener against the Rangers and didn’t get his first hit until two days later when he stroked a single. Despite his historically slow starts, this April was by far the worst of his career.

There was a ten game wait until Crawford hit his first double. There were just five extra-base hits. There were more than three times as many strikeouts as there were walks. And there was just four stolen bases, the lowest April steals mark in the career of a player who has been one of the most prolific and successful base stealers of the last decade.

But more glaring than what there was in April, was what there wasn’t.

There wasn’t a triple, for the first time in his nine full seasons as a Major Leaguer. There wasn’t a single sacrifice fly — and just two hits — in ten plate appearances with a runner on third and less than two out. And more than anything, there wasn’t any fear or reluctance from opposing pitchers, who attacked Crawford relentlessly, no longer afraid of what the strapping outfielder could do with the stick.

“I think it was a lot of stuff,” Francona said of his expensive left fielder’s struggles at the plate. “[Playing in Boston] is hard for a lot of guys. There’s a lot of things going on. It kind of snowballed and took him a while to pick himself up.”

Of course, that Fenway microscope can be flipped over as well — a fact Crawford quickly found out in a clubhouse where he is no longer the superstar.

Crawford walks in the company of giants — the boisterous former MVP Dustin Pedroia, the fan-favorite workhorse Kevin Youkilis, the incomparable David Ortiz — and has had to adapt to a new world where he is no longer the leading man, simply a supporting star on one of the most impressive ensemble casts in recent baseball history.

But when you talk to Crawford, it’s easy to get the sense that he likes things that way.

“Things are getting better for me. Obviously I didn’t have the start I would’ve liked to have. But now it seems like things are opening up for me,” Crawford said. “I’m focusing a little better. I’m getting a little more comfortable. Gaining a little more confidence.”

That could be part of the reason why Crawford has settled in and found a familiar swing in an unfamiliar spot in the lineup.

Crawford took more than 4,000 at-bats from 2004 through 2010, but just 15 of them were taken lower than fourth in the batting order. But in Boston it took Crawford exactly four games to match that career total when Francona dropped his struggling hitter to seventh and eventually eighth in the lineup half way through April.

“I’ve been there my whole career, so I’m not going to lie and say I don’t,” Crawford said when asked if he misses hitting at the top of the lineup. “But it’s just one of those things that I have to adjust to with what’s going on and where I’m at.”

No one likes a demotion, especially someone with a $14 million dollar salary. But Crawford has taken the move in stride, hitting .257 out of the seven and eight hole this year. That average isn’t where the career .294 hitter would like it to be but it is a remarkable improvement over his .111 average when hitting from first to third earlier in the season.

Recently, Francona bumped Crawford up to sixth where he’s experienced his best success of the season, hitting .352 with three home runs and 12 RBIs in just 13 games.

“It’s something I’ve just had to accept,” Crawford said of being one of the most highly-paid bottom half hitters in the Majors. “It’s been working for us as a team and you definitely don’t want to mess up that chemistry.”

Chemistry may be the best way to describe what the Red Sox have been doing of late, cruising to a 37-16 record after starting the season 2-10.

Seemingly every hitter in the lineup is on a hot streak as the team has rattled off nine straight wins and has won 13 of the 17 games since Crawford moved to sixth in the batting order. The team will hit St. Petersburg Tuesday in an all-out sprint, riding its recent blitzkrieg offense that has scored more runs in its last two games than the Rays have in their last ten.

And Crawford’s solid numbers at Tropicana Field means the former Rays franchise player will be more than happy to see the city again. But will the fans at Tropicana Field be happy to see Crawford?

“I know there’s a lot of mixed emotions down there about me coming to Boston so I’m not sure what kind of reception I’ll get,” Crawford said. “Nobody wants a bad reception. Hopefully it’s something good.”

A small, unscientific poll of the Rays clubhouse — BJ Upton called Crawford the greatest Ray in franchise history — found his former teammates feel the same way.

Unlike many professional sports breakups, there is no bad blood here between Crawford and his ex-team. The humble outfielder is as well liked as he ever was.

“I’m looking forward to seeing him,” Rays shortstop Reid Brignac, one of Crawford’s closest friends on the team, said. “It’s not like it’s new or surprising anymore. You’re used to seeing him in a Red Sox uniform now.”

And as he heats up at the plate, it seems like Crawford is finally starting to get used to it too.

Published on MLB.com June 9

With 55 players selected in this week’s First-Year Player Draft — including 31 pitchers and 28 high schoolers — the Blue Jays Minor League system is about to receive a significant influx of talent.

Seven of those players were selected in the first 78 picks of the draft and, if signed by August 15, will immediately begin working towards one day joining the Blue Jays in the Majors.

But this year’s draft crop will have some stiff competition as they vie for a spot on the 40-man roster with several Blue Jays prospects already knocking on the big league door.

Despite the team’s recent draft-focused development strategy, three of the Blue Jays top prospects weren’t even drafted by the team — a fact that speaks volumes to the youth-loaded makeover Alex Anthopoulos has ushered in since taking over as general manager in October, 2009.

If you have followed the Blue Jays even remotely in the past two months you’ve surely heard the name Brett Lawrie mentioned once or twice. The blue chip infield prospect has been speculated to be on the verge of a Major League call-up practically since opening day and may have already been with the Blue Jays if not for a fracture he suffered in his left hand when he was hit by a pitch May 31.

Anthopoulos and the Blue Jays coveted Lawrie in the 2008 draft when he was selected by the Brewers in the first round and jumped at the chance to acquire him in the offseason for starting pitcher Shaun Marcum.

In his first season in the organization, the 21-year-old is hitting .354 with 15 home runs and 49 RBIs in 52 games for Triple-A Las Vegas. He has also made strides in the field since being shifted from second to third base and has blown the Blue Jays away with his ability to make adjustments at the plate.

In April, Lawrie drew just four walks while striking out 23 times, numbers that alarmed Anthopoulos who asked his top prospect to work on his plate discipline.

The results were remarkable as Lawrie turned over a completely new leaf in May, drawing 14 walks while striking out just 17 times.

While the hand injury was an unexpected setback at the most inopportune of times, Lawrie is expected to be back in action for Las Vegas in 2-3 weeks and could be up in the Majors shortly after the All-Star Break.

Catcher Travis d’Arnaud and outfielder Anthony Gose are two more highly-touted Blue Jays prospects that were drafted outside of the organization but brought in via trade. Both have a good chance to see action with the big league club sometime in the 2012 season.

The right-handed hitting d’Arnaud arrived in the Roy Halladay deal with the Phillies and is the organization’s top Minor League catching prospect after J.P. Arencibia joined the big league club this year. The 22-year-old is well known for his defense and stellar arm when crouched behind the plate. But he has held his own when standing over it as well, hitting .306 with 11 doubles, 5 home runs and 16 RBIs for Double-A New Hampshire this year.

Meanwhile, Gose was acquired for heavy hitter Brett Wallace in the 2009 offseason. Wallace, of course, was previously acquired from Oakland for Michael Taylor who had arrived in Toronto in the Halladay deal. Yes — that’s how far the creative Anthopoulos will go to acquire a prospect he covets.

Gose is just 20-years-old but is already patrolling center field for Double-A New Hampshire where he’s hitting .249 with five doubles, three triples, five home runs and 28 RBIs in 58 games. His biggest tool is his speed — both on the base paths and in the outfield — which he has used to swipe 27 bases in 32 attempts this season.

While those three have the Blue Jays well-stocked with high-upside hitters, 24-year-old right-hander Zach Stewart presents the organization’s best Minor League pitching prospect.

Stewart was acquired from the Reds in 2009 and thought of as a closer candidate with his hard fastball and sweeping slider. But the Blue Jays converted Stewart to a starter in 2010 and encouraged the Texan to develop a changeup in order to compliment his other pitches.

Coaches love pitchers with “raw stuff” and Stewart certainly has it, but he remains a work in progress with a 3-3 record and a 4.66 ERA in 11 starts this year at Double-A. He could be the beneficiary of a late season call up in 2011 or get his chance in the Majors sometime in 2012.

While their top prospects suggest otherwise, the Blue Jays actually do have a promising player or two in the organization that they drafted themselves, including right-hander Deck McGuire who the team selected with their first overall pick in 2010.

McGuire is a four-pitch workhorse out of Georgia Tech who the Blue Jays drafted with the anticipation of moving him quickly through the system and to the Major Leagues. The Blue Jays started him in 2011 at Class-A Dunedin where he’s gone 4-3 with a 3.27 ERA in 11 starts. He’s averaging a strikeout per inning and will be a strong candidate for promotion to Double-A as the season goes on.

Aaron Sanchez is another top pitching prospect in the Blue Jays system who was drafted in the first round, 34th overall, in 2010. The right-hander boasts a low 90’s fastball that will only get harder as he matures, along with a solid curveball and a changeup.

He’s been impressive so far this year in his first Minor League season, putting up a 2.16 ERA in ten starts while striking out 37 batters over 25 innings. But just days removed from celebrating his 19th birthday, Sanchez is likely still at least two or three years away from the Majors.

Carlos Perez and Adeiny Hechavarria, meanwhile, present a pair of exciting prospects the Blue Jays have gleaned from their international scouting.

Perez — a 20-year-old signed out of Venezuela in 2008 when he was just 17 — is yet another catching prospect in the Blue Jays system who has shown a good, patient approach at the plate. The right-handed hitter has posted a .392 on-base percentage throughout his three and a half years in the Blue Jays system and had more walks than strike outs coming into this season.

He’s currently hitting .261 with eight doubles, three triples, a home run and 21 RBIs with Class-A Lansing and is likely three years away from a shot in the Majors.

Hechavarria, meanwhile, chose the Blue Jays over the Yankees in April, 2010 when he signed a four-year, $10 million contract with Toronto. The highly sought-after prospect was a star for Cuba’s Junior National Team and is thought of as one of the best defensive shortstop prospects in the game.

Hechavarria’s approach at the plate has been a work in progress as he continues to adjust to life in North America, both as a baseball player and a citizen.  He hit .242 (100-for-414) with 18 doubles, four triples, four home runs and 41 RBIs in 2010.

At Double-A New Hampshire this year, the results have been similar, as Hechavarria is batting .228 with 14 doubles, four triples, four home runs and 21 RBIs.

However, his strikeouts are down and his walks are up which are encouraging signs for a future top of the order hitter. The right-handed batter has also stolen 11 bases this year in 15 attempts, after going 13 for 16 in 2010.

The Cuban’s speed and dazzling glove work could see him get a shot with the big league club sometime in the 2012 season.

Finally, two promising prospects that are further away from joining the Blue Jays than the others are Jake Marisnick and Asher Wojciechowski.

Marisnick was drafted out of high school in the 3rd round of the 2009 draft and given a $1 million deal to forego college and join Toronto’s minor league system as an outfielder.

He has above average speed and a plus arm in the outfield where he has primarily played center or right. The 20-year-old mostly hits for average, currently batting .296 with 9 doubles, three triples, four home runs and 36 RBIs for Class-A Lansing. But the hope is that as the Californian matures he will begin to develop more power.

The fleet-footed Marisnick has 17 stolen bases in 22 attempts this season after going 23 for 26 in 2010 and will continue to progress through the Blue Jays system until 2013 at the earliest.

Wojciechowski —a hulking 6-foot-4, 235-poound right-hander — was a supplemental first-round pick in 2010 and could develop into a reliever or a starting pitcher depending on the needs of the organization.

He boasts a mid-90’s fastball, along with a plus slider and a still developing changeup. He has made 11 starts for Class-A Dunedin this season, going 4-4 with a 4.53 ERA. The 44 strikeouts over his 57 2/3 innings are encouraging but the average of 3.3 walks per nine innings is a number the Blue Jays would like to come down.

With so much young pitching already clogging up the Blue Jays system — including the upcoming influx of arms from the 2011 Draft — the 22-year-old Wojciechowski may be waiting until at least 2013 before he gets a shot in the Majors.

Published on MLB.com May 31st

Zack Hample teeters up on his toes, leaning out of his hotel window with both eyes firmly fixated on his target.

“There it is. Number 4,989 sitting right there on that seat. I have to get that ball,” the slender New Yorker says of a stray baseball sitting on a chair. “Oh man — this is so much fun. I’m in heaven right now.”

Heaven, for a ball hawk like Hample, involves running around a Major League ball park, looking to snag foul balls and coerce players and coaches to toss balls into the stands. It’s a complex combination of science, athleticism, patience and luck. And Hample is the best there ever was at it.

Hample holds the distinction of having caught the most baseballs of anyone ever at Major League baseball games. He was in Toronto for the Blue Jays four game series with the White Sox last weekend, where he crossed the 5,000 ball threshold and as of Monday had run his total to 5,015 balls caught at Major League games.

“Yes, I’m obsessed,” Hample admits, peering out over an empty Rogers Centre. “This year in particular I’m just finding myself really, really into this. I’m kind of living it. I’m hoping to hit up all 30 stadiums this year and snag 1,000 balls.

“At any moment I could get another one. If the White Sox come out for early batting practice, I’m going to throw on my White Sox gear and start shouting at them.”

Hample is staying, of course, at the Renaissance Hotel in Toronto which is unique for the fact that a select number of rooms at the hotel back onto the outfield at Rogers Centre where the Blue Jays play their home games. Hample’s room is in right-center field and is where he caught the first ball on his trip to Toronto, well before he was even admitted into the ball park.

Hollering from his hotel window Hample got the attention of Blue Jays pitchers Kyle Drabek and Ricky Romero, who took turns hurling balls skyward up to the window, seeing who could get one to Hample first. Romero won, and Hample had his 4,977th ball of his hawking career.

Four days and 39 collected baseballs later, Hample left Toronto, heading back south of the border where more games and more opportunities to snag balls await.

“It’s cool to be connected to all these guys. It’s my own version of fantasy baseball where I get to interact and play with numbers and feel like I’m part of it somehow,” Hample said.

Hample started collecting baseballs in 1990 and has caught balls at 48 different Major League stadiums. Toronto was Hample’s eighth big league ball park this year, and pushed his games attended to over 40 in 2011 which is more than a lot of big leaguers have even played this season.

Hample thinks he’s in his ball hawking prime, currently averaging around six to eight balls per game. He employs a number of strategies to collect the balls, including switching hats and jerseys to get balls from different teams at the same game and rigging a baseball mitt with a rubber band, a permanent marker and a long piece of string to make a ball trap which he uses to fetch balls that are out of his reach.

Number 5,000 came Saturday on an Alex Rios batting practice home run that Hample snagged on the fly in left-center field. It was also the 701st straight game that Hample has caught a ball at. But to Hample — 5,000, 700, 48 — they’re all just numbers

“5,000 is cooler than 4,000 and it’s a rounder number than 6,000,” Hample, who says he’s obsessed with numbers, said. “But I try not to live for my stats. I just love baseball and I feel like I would be going to games regardless and just being obsessed with the sport.”

Hample has written three books about baseball and writes a blog almost daily with updates on his progress as he travels around the United States catching baseballs. He gets recognized by fans at ball parks and even has people who follow his movement online and show up at stadiums with copies of his books to sign.

Most are simply in awe of the maddening number of balls Hample has caught.

“I’ve had people ask about 10,000. It’s hard to imagine that everything that I’ve done in my life as far as catching balls, I would have to all over again. But maybe 10,000 is possible,” Hample said. “Maybe if there were two of me. Or ten of me.”

The more important numbers for Hample right now are the ones he’s putting into dollars and cents columns on his ever growing receipt of charity donations.

Three years ago Hample began taking pledges for every ball he collects, much like a marathoner would take a pledge rate for every mile they run. The proceeds Hample raises all go to Pitch In For Baseball, a non-profit charity that provides baseball and softball equipment to underprivileged youth around the globe.

Some pledge a penny, others 50 cents or a dollar. It all adds up to Hample currently earning just under seven dollars for every ball he collects. Already this season Hample has raised more than $2,000 and with 100-odd games to go and an average of around six to eight balls per game, the money will keep piling up.

“The Major League Baseball season is my marathon and instead of running miles I’m catching baseballs,” Hample, who raised more than $14,000 last year, said. “It’s added incentive. I’m always really happy about catching a ball. But now I’m actually able to give something back to the baseball world and to kids at the same time.”

The boyish Hample should be able to relate to kids, as he spends the majority of his time running around chasing souvenir baseballs at Major League ballparks. Ball hawking is almost designed for the young at heart and Hample even has the scars to prove it.

Sitting in a chair in his hotel room, Hample pulls up his pant leg and reveals a quarter-sized welt on his right shin, a badge of honor from chasing balls the night prior. Hample had mistimed a leap over a row of seats and smacked his shin directly into one of the 46,105 hard plastic seats at Rogers Centre.

“It was probably the twentieth time all day that I jumped over a row of seats,” Hample explained. “There wasn’t even anybody around me.”

Yes, ball hawking is a surprisingly athletic pursuit. During batting practice ahead of Thursday night’s game between the White Sox and Blue Jays, Hample darted back and forth behind the Rogers Centre batter’s eye, setting up in the left-center field seats for left-handed batters and right-center for right-handers.

He ran that sea-saw race for a solid 45 minutes, clamoring over seats, leaning over railings and jumping skyward as balls sailed near him.

“I was completely drenched in sweat by the end of batting practice,” Hample said. “Which is good because it beats a gym membership. This is how I stay fit.”

During the game, Hample will set up down the foul lines line or to either side of home plate, hoping to find himself under a stray foul ball or to pounce on a ball that deflects off another fan. In between innings and after the game, it’s off to the dugout where often players or umpires will toss balls to the crowd.

“I’m all over the place,” Hample explains, noting that he will change his placement and approach depending on a variety of ball park factors. “I have to see what the crowd is like, who the starting pitchers are. Who’s in the starting lineups. The weather can affect it. It really is a science.”

Hample collects most of his balls in batting practice or from players who chuck balls into the crowd. But of course, the most exhilarating catches come during the game like the pair of home runs he caught in New York on back-to-back nights in September 2008 — two of the last ten homers ever hit at the old Yankee Stadium — which garnered Hample national media attention and television appearances.

For Hample it’s all about collecting as many balls as possible. But there’s something a little bit more special about catching one during a live game.

“Number 4,900 was a foul ball during a game that Bryan Roberts hit. Number 2,500 was a foul ball hit by Marlon Anderson during a game at Shea… — oh look at this.”

Hample trails off mid-sentence, his attention suddenly directed at something he spots out of the corner of his eye and cannot ignore. He springs out of his seat and in one fell swoop grabs his mitt and opens the window which separates Hample from right field at Rogers Centre.

“They’re wheeling out a basket of balls for early BP,” Hample enthusiastically exclaims. “Oh yeah, baby. Let’s do this.”

That’s why they call them ball hawks. They always keep at least one eye on their prey.

He would stay up all night, meticulously loading disc after disc into his computer, burning them with game tape for recruiters.

In the morning, he would head to the post office and mail the DVDs — a process he repeated 119 times, sending a disc to every single Division 1 school in the United States.

It was painstaking, but it paid off for Williams when he was recruited to play football at the University of Houston in 2006. Four years later, he would be the first overall pick in the CFL Canadian Draft.

But for every Williams — one of Canadian football’s most prominent success stories — there are scores of others who don’t catch the breaks, don’t have the drive and aren’t afforded the resources to put themselves on the college radar.

No one knows that better than Williams.

“I went through the whole recruiting process. It was a grind,” Williams said. “I figured there had to be an easier way to do it.”

That was all the inspiration the entrepreneurial Williams would need to launch Top Prospects Canada, an online recruiting service for Canadian high school football and basketball players.

The service is free for young athletes and hosts all of their information and videos online, helping connect them with recruiters and coaches from across Canada.

It’s a service that Williams wishes was in place when he was trying to get recruited.

“It’s really helpful to have everything a college coach needs to recruit you all in one place,” Williams said. “Especially for the Canadian universities. A lot of kids don’t recognize the opportunities they have here in Canada.”

Williams has signed up close to 900 athletes since launching Top Prospects last year and thinks the sky is the limit in terms of the website’s potential. While it currently only focuses on football and basketball, Williams wants to branch out into other CIS sports as well.

“I’m definitely surprised with how quickly it’s grown. I didn’t put any money into advertising or anything like that,” Williams said. “It just shows the need of a service like this.”

Williams is just the latest in a long line of Canadian athletes who have found success off the field in the business world.

Rick Powers is the Academic Director of the Directors Programs at the Rotman School of Management in Toronto. He was formerly the Associate Dean of the Rotman MBA program and has seen a number of athletes pass through his classrooms.

He feels that while the biggest barrier for athletes entering the business world is a lack of experience, their athletic background almost always makes up for that.

“You think of the qualities that you develop as an athlete. Competitiveness, teamwork, integrity, ethics, leadership skills. These are all things that we would look for in helping train future leaders,” Powers said.

Teamwork is an especially useful skill for athletes entering business programs like the one at Rotman, as most schools require students to work almost exclusively in teams during the earlier phases of their studies.

The dynamic of the locker room — from the veteran leaders to the green rookies trying to blend into the walls — is not unlike the dynamic of the board room.

But according to Powers, the athletes always seem to gravitate towards familiar roles.

“The former high performance athletes that we get in the program are almost always leaders in the school,” Powers said. “They command a certain amount of respect from the others because they know what it’s taken to achieve at that level.”

One of Powers’ highest profile former students is Johann Koss, a four-time Olympic gold-medal winning speed skater who completed an Executive MBA at Rotman.

Since graduating, Koss has become the CEO of Right to Play, a humanitarian organization that promotes sport and health in some of the world’s most underprivileged communities. He frequently comes back to Rotman to talk to students about leadership and making the transition from athletics to business.

“A lot of the former athletes really enjoy the experience and stay involved with the school. They’re non-traditional candidates but we’re so glad when we get them,” Powers said.

One former CFL athlete who chose to pursue his education south of the border is Rob LeBlanc, who pulled double duty playing two seasons with the Edmonton Eskimos while working with consulting firm Oliver Wyman.

The wide receiver was cut by the Eskimos in 2007 and, instead of searching for employment with another CFL club, decided to pursue a career in business instead. Oliver Wyman sent LeBlanc to the Middle East for a year to work before he returned to Canada and worked two years for a private equity firm in Toronto. During that time he applied to business schools and today LeBlanc is enrolled at Harvard where he’s working towards an MBA.

“If you play team sports at any level, let alone professionally, you learn a lot of the fundamentals that translate into success and business,” LeBlanc said. “Specifically communicating under pressure and pulling together towards a shared goal.”

That’s something that LeBlanc and former Eskimos teammate Ricky Ray had to do frequently, communicating and making plays on the football field with 30,000 loud, rowdy fans looking on. That’s why LeBlanc asked Ray to write him a reference letter for his Harvard admission, emphasizing the working relationship between the two as quarterback and receiver.

Evidently, LeBlanc’s CFL experience helped him in more ways than one.

“The CFL locker room is such a diverse place. You bring guys together from all walks of life and different countries,” LeBlanc, who was an Academic All-Canadian at McGill, said. “The ability to connect, interact and be a good teammate with all these different guys is a really good skill for business.

“You learn how to earn people’s respect and how to work collaboratively with people that you’re very different from. The CFL was a really good experience.”

Another business-minded football player who has benefitted from the CFL experience is Jeff Piercy. The former fullback played four seasons in the league for Montreal and Hamilton before retiring in 2009 to pursue an MBA at Oxford University in England.

Now, having completed his MBA this past December, the 28-year-old has an internship at an American investment bank in London where he handles mergers and acquisitions.

“I was very happy to be able to play football. But I always wanted to do an MBA,” Piercy said from London. “I always thought I would be better at business than I was at football anyway.”

The hallowed halls of Oxford are no doubt a far cry from the Canadian gridiron that Piercy once roamed. But the Rosetown, Saskatchewan native said his football background helped him during the application process because it set him apart from the thousands of other applicants who had relatively similar resumes.

Many business schools are also looking for as diverse a class as possible, with candidates from a variety of backgrounds who can present different points of view and foster interesting discussion.

Not to mention the countless traits that Piercy learned on the football field that he can transfer over to the business realm.

“In football you learn about accountability and trust. Anything that teaches you those things is valuable and sport is a great example,” Piercy said.

“It’s very important to have something that teaches you how to be a team player — how to be a leader and how to follow when you need to follow. It was football that taught me that lesson.”

Football also taught Piercy how to handle high pressure situations, which come part and parcel with his current job where he values companies and helps firms defend themselves against takeover bids.

“In sport, you have these high pressure situations where if you screw up, it’s your fault and everybody knows it,” Piercy said. “I don’t think you can deal with situations like that unless you’ve been through them. You have to learn how to deal with pressure.

“The advantage of coming from sports to an employer is you’re somebody who’s been through that stuff. You’re battle tested when you get there.”

That’s something that Williams — just 26-years-old and entering his second year with the Roughriders — knows all too well.

He persevered through sleepless nights burning DVDs and mailing them around the continent, and he knows nothing with Top Prospects will come easily.

“A lot of things happen in business that are out of your control. Just like how a lot of things happen in football that are out of your control,” Williams said. “In both of them, the ability to adapt is an important trait.”

And when your job is to crash head-first into 250-pound men every week — one that most can’t do past their mid-30s — having a plan B doesn’t hurt either.

“At the end of the day, football probably won’t last forever, as much as you want it to,” Williams said. “I want to set myself up where I can be in a good position when I do leave the game to have something I can fall back on.”