Young Cflers get credits they deserve
Former University of Alberta Golden Bears spend off-season hitting the books to prep for life after football
Sitting in his economics classes at the University of Alberta, Hugh O’neill looks like many of his peers. He frets over due dates and exams and, like most 22-year-olds at the school, he’s eyeing the completion of his bachelor’s degree.
What separates him from the rest of his classmates, and even his professors, is that he’s a Grey Cup champion who’ll report to his day job — backup kicker for the B.C. Lions — at the end of the winter semester.
“It’s kind of good to be in and settled,” said O’neill, a former U of A Golden Bears kicker who is enjoying his first Canadian Football League off-season by chipping away at the remaining classes on his degree.
“The first semester was hard (to adjust to mentally) but you get used to switching your focus from football to school.”
O’neill is one of four recent former Golden Bears who have gone on to the CFL that return to school every winter. Edmonton Eskimos offensive linemen Gord Hinse, Dale Stevenson and brand-new free agent signee Simeon Rottier all played for the Bears and are all working on their respective degrees.
“Simeon and I train together almost every day because our schedules are pretty close,” said Hinse, a native studies major who is leaning toward doing an education degree after he graduates this April. Rottier is an agriculture student.
“It’s nice to have someone who has a schedule that’s similar to mine and they know what kind of pressure you’re under as far as assignments and tests and all that stuff, so they can sympathize with what you’re going through at the same time with training and school.”
Stevenson, a 25-year-old education major, spent his rookie season with the Eskimos on the team’s practice roster last year. He’ll have four more classes left when he goes back to school next winter. He wants to teach
I just take each season as it comes and try and make sure I can be ready to do the best I can do. If football lasts a long time, then that’s great, and if it doesn’t, that’s why you go to
school.
B.C. Lions Hugh O’neill
physical education and social studies when he’s done playing football.
“My mom and dad always said I had to have a backup plan, and in the CFL where we’re not making $10-$15 million a year, you’ve got to have a plan for when you’re finished football,” he said. “You can’t play football forever.”
That point hit home for the young O-linemen in 2011 as they watched a number of their teammates — Aaron Fiacconi (shoulder), Kyle Koch (knee) and Junius Coston (knee) — fall to season-ending injuries. The injuries to Fiacconi and Koch opened the door for Hinse, who filled in well at centre and will compete for the starting job at the position this season.
“Your career can be over in an instant,” Hinse said. “It could be over on the football field or you could get in an accident tomorrow, so it’s a pretty volatile job in that regard.
“If you plan properly and go through the proper channels, you could be in good shape when you leave.”
That said, none of the players were working with a set time frame. Football will be the job for them, they said, until it can’t pay the bills anymore.
“I just take each season as it comes and try and make sure I can be ready to do the best I can do,” O’neill said. “If football lasts a long time, then that’s great, and if it doesn’t, that’s why you go to school.”
“I want to play as long as I can be healthy,” Stevenson said. “I don’t really want to put my knees in too much jeopardy. When it starts coming down to getting surgeries and stuff like that I would start calling it quits.”
“I always thought a 10-year career would be pretty good,” Hinse added. “That’s a good amount of time to play and you can still get out before your body starts breaking down too much.”
While O’neill is a part of the team that knocked Hinse and Stevenson out of the playoff picture in November, the young kicker said it was nice to see his former teammates in the off-season.
“It’s good to see them,” he said. “The U of A is kind of a hub for where we started and it’s nice to come back. We were here for four years. It’s nice to be here,” he said.
“It’s nice to know I’m not the only one doing it,” Stevenson said. “I’m good friends with Gord, Simeon and Hugh and we can talk about it and it’s just kind of nice to have that support system.”