Greene hoping
DRAFT: Will award-winning Greene buck trend for potential Canadian quarterbacks?
UBC quarterback Billy Greene may have been a Hec Crighton Trophy winner but it means nothing when it comes to Thursday’s CFL draft
It was a perfect football moment, the kind where the picture that was taken is kept by mothers for the family scrapbook. It was also the moment where Billy Greene could have delusional thoughts.
The scene is a backroom at the Vancouver Convention Centre in November as Greene, the UBC Thunderbirds quarterback, has just been named winner of the Hec Crighton Award as the top CIS player last year. It is suggested he pose alongside Travis Lulay, who had just been voted most outstanding player in the CFL for the B.C. Lions during Grey Cup week.
It might have been fair for Greene to believe at that moment life could not get much better and think about the prospects of continuing his career behind centre. The dreamer in him perhaps might have reached the point where arguably one of the best quarterbacking prospects to emerge from high school football in B.C. eventually would see himself going to the Lions.
A mobile quarterback from Surrey who has already has a better understanding of a motion-based threedown offence than any import the Lions might sign for training camp? Pretty good marketing synergy.
But the graduate of Surrey’s Holy Cross is at a crossroads of a different sort, and enters the CFL draft Thursday (noon, TSN) with equal parts anticipation and anxiety, but also a little frustrated.
It’s clear based on his dealings to date that the Lions view him as only a possible free agent signing if he is not drafted, and only as a running back. B.C. invited Greene to an open camp this week, but did not attend.
The bigger question is whether any CFL club will pick the engaging 22-year-old and sign him as quarterback. One scouting service, Ridley Scouting, has Greene no better than the third-rated quarterback in the draft, raising the prospect that the top college player in Canada may not be taken at all.
This week at least, he is a Canadian in exile.
“Not knowing is not annoying but it’s a little inconvenient,” Greene said. “It’s also exciting.”
He knows winning the Hec Crighton Award only makes him the latest poster boy for one of the greatest debates in league history about the viability of a Canadian quarterback in the CFL. Quarterbacks have won the college award nine times in the last 13 years, but the only winner to become a CFL starter has been a slotback, Andy Fantuz.
Greene does not shy from the topic, however, because of the opportunity for awareness. He is not the first player asked to change positions. However, when the T-birds had the 2011 season wiped out because they used an ineligible player, Greene became the only Hec Crighton winner in CIS history with an 0-8 record, making him unique in another way he never imagined.
It’s been that way ever since he began playing the game as a running back and linebacker, ironically told upon entering high school he was too big to play quarterback.
The likely scenario is that Greene will play quarterback at UBC this fall regardless of whether he is drafted Thursday. Making it more difficult, however, is the fact any team picking Greene and bringing him to camp will risk him to free agency in 2013 if he returns to school, thanks to the CFL’S Byzantine draft rules, which have bitten the Lions and other clubs more than once.
The only bright spot might be the prospect of an expansion team in Ottawa in 2014, before which time free agent quarterbacks of any nationality will be coveted.
At 6’1” and 220 pounds, Greene has been preparing for the moment he will become the latest Canadian not to play quarterback. The most recent test came when he was assessed at the CFL’S annual evaluation camp in Toronto two months ago as a quarterback, running back and receiver.
The worst part was being asked about his goals when meeting privately with a few CFL clubs.
“I’m sitting there wanting to play quarterback but not wanting to come across as someone who is going to be stubborn and not for the team,” Greene said.
“It’s a really weird process for me. I’m up for anything but at the same time I would love a chance to play quarterback. It’s not being twofaced, but you have to have two different personalities.”
Suggestions on how to give a Canadian pivot a better chance have been widespread over the years, the latest being one where a CFL team to roll the dice would receive additional salary cap room.
A few teams have tried grooming without the incentive. Greene’s Hec Crighton predecessor, Brad Sinopoli of the University of Ottawa, finished last year on the active roster with the Calgary Stampeders. Mark Mueller (Regina) and Vanier Cup winning Kyle Quinlan (Mcmaster) also went to CFL camps last year.
Generally, however, CFL teams aren’t willing to invest training camp reps on Canadian quarterbacks in the spring and aren’t always sure what they are seeing when watching them in the CIS in the fall.
“There’s only eight games a season,” Lions coach Mike Benevides said. And those who see the quarterbacks for longer periods say CFL teams are missing out.
“The key for me is not whether there are Canadians playing quarterback in the CFL; it’s that they get a camp opportunity,” said UBC coach Shawn Olson.
“It’s getting past the idea they can’t compete. Generally they know the game better. Athletically they’re usually on par. It’s a mindset of the people making decisions, and to some degree I don’t begrudge them for that; their jobs are on the line. You’re trying to make decisions on imperfect comparison data.
“People don’t seem to want to invest. That’s the thinking I have the biggest problem with, because if they do they’ll be pleasantly surprised. Billy Greene is an athlete with a strong arm who can run.”
Olson has worked with Greene, only the third Hec Crighton winner in UBC history, on his mental toughness, still not an easy task for a quarterback who admitted to being high-strung in the past.
It means he has learned to avoid jumping to conclusions about his fate in the upcoming draft, just as he was able to savour the moment with Lulay at the CFL Awards ceremony last fall.
“That night was the second-best thing that could have happened in my collegiate career, second only to holding the Vanier Cup,” Greene said. “But I kind of always have been able to separate things.
“You do ask yourself, why don’t they want me as a quarterback? At the same time, any opportunity to play [another position] is the way I’m looking at it. I’m coming to terms with it a little more.” It’s Canada. He has no other choice.