Hushed puppies: Argos looking for ‘quiet feet’ in QBs
Rookie Argonaut quarterback Dakota Prukop said head coach Marc Trestman likes to toss around the term “quiet feet” when talking with his quarterbacks.
Prukop has noticed how “quiet” Ricky Ray’s feet are.
What does that mean exactly? “He’s always so decisive with his feet,” Prukop explained Thursday at the team’s walkthrough in preparation for Friday night’s pre-season game against the Hamilton Ticats.
“He knows what he’s doing even before he does it. I think he’s a step ahead of everyone else. It’s really about being calm basically.
“You see a lot of quarterbacks and they’re jerky, or indecisive with the feet. Every step you take has to have a purpose.”
When he was in the U.S., Prukop heard coaches there talking about Tom Brady’s feet in the same way.
BAY AREA ROOTS: Rookie quarterback McLeod Bethel-Thompson was looking forward to Friday’s pre-season game and catching up with Hamilton QB Jeremiah Masoli. They grew up together in San Francisco.
“He’s a good friend of mine, so it will be exciting to see him,” the 28-yearold Bethel-Thompson said. “He grew up almost down the street from me. We’ve been kind of compared to for a long time. But I don’t know anything about Hamilton beyond that.”
Bethel-Thompson may be a mouthful, but there’s even more to his name. He’s got two middle names as well, John and Baltazar, but he realizes McLeod John Baltazar BethThompson would never fit on the back of his jersey.
“All five names are family names,” he explained. “I’ve got a big family. I’m a quarter Salvadoran (from El Salvador) and I have a lot of Scottish ancestry. Bethel is my dad’s last name and Thompson is my mom’s last name.
“Me and my sister honoured our parents by taking both names.”
MEMORIES OF DON: Argos head coach Marc Trestman paid tribute to hall of fame coach Don Matthews, whose death at age 77 was announced on Wednesday. “I got to know coach when I was in Montreal,” Trestman said. “He visited us and spent some time with us. We got to be friends. We talked periodically, and he was a great resource for me when I started my coaching career.”