Mcmaster QB Kyle Quinlan bounces back after legal trouble

TORONTO (CP) — Kyle Quinlan only realized how much he loved football once it was taken away.

After being charged with assault following a September 2011 incident at a campus bar, the McMaster Marauders quarterback rededicated himself when he returned from a three-game suspension.

That new-found focus helped Quinlan propel his team to not only last year’s Vanier Cup title, but to the cusp of winning a second championship.

“Anytime you’re missing out on games, I think regardless of the circumstance, you realize how important the game really is,” the fifth-year pivot said this week as the Marauders prepared to meet the Laval Rouge et Or in Friday’s rematch of last year’s 41-38 double-overtime victory. “Being forced to watch a game from the sidelines ... you realize how much you love being in there and how much the game really means to you.

“That’s something that definitely drove me going forward all through last year, through the off-season, through this season.”

The incident following a loss to Western was a watershed moment for both Quinlan and the Marauders.

The team went 3-0 without its starting quarterback and haven’t looked back since, going on a record-breaking 21-game CIS winning streak that included the school’s first Vanier Cup.

McMaster head coach Stefan Ptaszek says Quinlan returned from suspension with the burden of having let his teammates down. It was a feeling the product of South Woodslee, Ont., never wanted to experience again.

“He made a mistake that probably a lot of university students make in their growing up ( but) he did it front of (the media) and at the expense of his entire lockerroom. To have those stakes meant he was held to a higher level of accountability,” Ptaszek said. “Football is not a right and I don’t think most 20 year olds understand that.

“He knows it’s a privilege and this may be his last football game ever and he’s one of the few kids in their five years that hasn’t wasted many days.”

Quinlan was charged with two counts of assaulting an officer and one count of assault but eventually pleaded guilty to causing a disturbance and was given a one-year conditional sentence.

He was supported by coaches and teammates throughout the process, who said the incident was completely out of character.

“(In a) controversial situation to be involved in, to have a guy like coach Ptaszek stick his neck out there for me was saying a lot,” Quinlan said. “He really backs up his talk and he truly is a players’ coach and he’s going to put his players before himself.”