It’s been a great run for Jesse
When Jesse Lumsden steps onto the field during McMaster’s Homecoming Game on Saturday to be introduced as a newly inducted member of the sports hall of fame, he’ll be in the discussion as the best pure athlete ever to come out of the university.
He doesn’t just still hold pretty much every school record for which he qualifies more than a decade after he left campus, wasn’t just the top player in his sport in all of Canada — he won the Hec Crighton Award in 2004 — and didn’t just turn pro and quickly become one of the most exciting players in the CFL. He also switched sports in his prime and went to three Olympic Games as a bobsledder.
But even he admits he thinks about what might have been. How great he might have been but for some horrendous luck. What trophies and medals might be on his mantle but for some terrible breaks.
“All the time,” he says. “Absolutely all the time.”
The Burlington native isn’t just the greatest running back ever to wear maroon, he’s the greatest by a mile. His career 4,138 rushing yards are 1,498 more than the guy in second place despite not using his fifth year of eligibility.
Yet, he never won a Vanier Cup. The one year he might have, the Marauders ran into a University of Manitoba team whose average age was roughly that of the Ticats. Seriously. In his fourth year when things were looking good again, he partially tore his meniscus and couldn’t play in the Yates Cup against Laurier. With him on the sidelines, Mac’s four-year run as champions ended.
He got a tryout with the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks and looked good in training camp but sprained his hip and was released. Later, he signed with the Washington Redskins, injured his groin in camp and was released.
Once he landed with the hometown Ticats he was a star. Highlight clips online remind us how explosive and how impactful he was in those exciting days. Unfortunately, a shoulder injury sidelined him. Then another. Then when he got to Edmonton as a member of the
Eskimos, a third.
“That third one was emotionally crushing,” he says.
He stood in the locker-room that night and wept in his father Neil’s arms. Then gave himself 24 hours to deal with it emotionally before setting his mind on recovering fast enough to make Canada’s Olympic bobsled team.
He did, and quickly became one of the best not only in the country but in the world. By the time he stood in the starting blocks for the second run of the Sochi Games in 2014 his crew was in fourth and contending for a medal. Halfway down that run they’d moved up to second.
Then they crashed. Dream done.
“If I hadn’t gone through the s--- I’d gone through before,” he says, “it would’ve been the hardest.”
It adds up to a lot of tough moments and a lot of frustration. Which makes asking why this should all be brought up on one of the exciting days of his life when he’ll be honoured for his excellence at school — along with wrestling stars Sheldon Francis and Stefanie West (Howorun), swimming legend Michele Oliver and the 1997 Canadian champion baseball team — a completely fair question? What’s the point?
Glad you asked. The 36-yearold is quick to say that while this moments were difficult, they were also necessary.
Had he not been hurt before that Yates Cup game, maybe he does something spectacular en route to a national championship and he doesn’t fall to the Ticats in the draft.
If he doesn’t land in Hamilton, perhaps he never suffers that first shoulder injury and then the others.
If those never happen, who knows if he discovers bobsleigh? If that never happens, he surely never competes in world championships or the Olympics, doesn’t meet his partner — Helen Upperton is also a former Olympic bobsledder — and doesn’t have his daughter, Florence. Nor does he end up in Alberta and meet his mentor who gets him into his new career in private equity.
And if none of these unpleasant events happen, maybe he doesn’t learn how to deal with struggles and develop the confidence that he can succeed no matter what’s facing him, even in a non-sports arena as he is now.
Simply put, each door that slammed shut led him to another door that was opening.
“The way things finished up, I feel pretty lucky,” he says.
Of course, not all of his pursuits have ended with a what if ?
Back in 2011, he and his bobsled driver Justin Kripps competed on the reality TV show Mantracker. Late in the game, the two got separated. Eventually Lumsden bolted for the finish line — and made it — while Kripps literally got stuck in mud, was caught by the tracker and was eliminated.
“It’s the one time I said, ‘Screw my teammate, I’m going for this.’” he laughs.
Makes you wonder if he should’ve gone into individual sports way back when instead of the ones he chose.
That thought makes him laugh even louder.
“Maybe.”