Gee-gee thrilled to be back
Safety Bond-lapointe a lucky athlete after injuring neck
It’s probably safe to say that every member of the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees football team is jacked up emotionally for the start of the 2013 season.
Probably none more so, however, than Matthew BondLapointe.
The fifth-year safety and kick returner is just lucky to be back on the field after injuring his neck in the final game of 2012.
A combination of bad tackling form on his part and an onrushing Western Mustangs running back fractured Bond-Lapointe’s C5 vertebra, though he didn’t know it at the time and left the field under his own power.
Continuing soreness after the game at Beckwith Park led him to consult a team doctor, though. That led to X-rays, diagnosis of the injury and surgery to fuse a piece of his hip to the C5 and C6 vertebrae and cover it with a plate.
Bond-Lapointe wore a collar-high neck brace for three months before resuming workouts. His doctor OK’d a return to football on the condition that he would stop immediately if he felt any pain from contact. So far so good through 10 days of training camp, so the 5-10, 181-pound Bond-Lapointe will be on the field Sunday, when the GeeGees kick off the Ontario University Athletics season at Hamilton against the McMaster Marauders.
“It’s ridiculous,” Bond-Lapointe said Thursday before practice at the U of O’s new Lees Avenue stadium. “I’m so lucky to be out here.
“Just thinking about not being able to be with my team and not being able to play football again was such a downer.
“Just having the privilege to be out here and running around, not even playing football, just being able to move, to be able to run around … a lot of people get that injury and that’s it for them. They’re paralyzed.
“But I’m privileged to be able to do this again, and I take every second not for granted, that’s for sure.”
Bond-Lapointe played all eight games last year. He was credited with 20.5 tackles, one sack, a forced fumble and an interception. It was a tough year for the team, though. Five consecutive losses led to the dismissal of head coach Gary Etcheverry, and a loss to Western in the regular-season finale left the Gee-Gees out of the playoffs at 2-6.
Former U of O quarterback and assistant coach Jamie Barresi, who spent the past three decades in the U.S. college and CFL ranks, was hired as the new head coach in January.
Barresi said Thursday he wanted these Gee-Gees to think about the team’s tradition of success, including 1975 and 2000 Vanier Cups.
Last year, Barresi said, was an anomaly.
“There is an expectation to play hard and to play fast and to finish games, and I want them to be disciplined,” he said. “I need them to be disciplined and unselfish. We just have to play smart football.
“I’ll see how it goes. I may not have got my message across, but that’s what I have been stressing.”
The Gee-Gees start the season with a generous amount of CIS experience, with approximately 20 roster players in their fourth and fifth years, including Bond-Lapointe.
After playing the Marauders, defending OUA champions, the Gee- Gees visit the Waterloo Warriors before playing their first home game at the Lees Avenue stadium against the Toronto Varsity Blues on Sept. 7. A week later, they’re in London to face Western.
Barresi said he wasn’t worried about the heavy slate of early road games.
“It’s not a big deal,” he said. “The field is 110 yards (long). They all have 20-yard end zones, except for our place. “Just go line up and play.” Bond-Lapointe expressed a sense of obligation, as a starter and fifth-year veteran, to do whatever he could to lead younger Gee-Gees.
“I don’t even think about the injury anymore,” he said. “It’s Mac, it’s Game 1, it’s a new season, new era, new everything. It’s full go 110 per cent.”