I have him beat as soon as our eyes meet.
The plan is to run a post route, a passing play I ran hundreds of times as a wide receiver in high school. It’s simple. Run straight downfield for 15 yards, turn right, and catch the ball in the space between myself and the defender.
But the key to making it work is the fake to the left before the cut. If it’s pulled off correctly, I can get a half step on my man, making it impossible for him to get between me and the ball.
I grin at the guy lined up against me. I am confident, he is nervous.
His eyes shift from side to side, hoping I’ll give away a vital clue about what I’m going to do. In a tryout, any advantage is multiplied—being a half second faster or slower might as well be an hour.
The quarterback calls “ready, go,” and I take off. We push and shove, both of us trying to get an edge. I fake, he takes the bait, and the ball rocks across the field into my outstretched hands.
“He’d be pretty good, if he wasn’t so out of shape,” a coach says as I run by.
Three years since my last snap of competitive football and I’m trying out for the Carleton Ravens men’s football team. My lack of dedication is obvious. I’ve spent the morning bent over double, chasing my breath while the other players chase their dreams.
Everybody here is desperate to take a spot.
Competition is fierce at an open tryout, where some, but only some, will earn the right to wear the Carleton Ravens football jersey next season.
From the sidelines to the field
The trickle of hopefuls starts through the front door early, about half an hour before the scheduled start time. Last year, the space was crowded with players who wanted to suit up for the reboot of Carleton football, but this year only about 20 show up.
“Last year, we had everybody who ever watched football come out to the tryout,” Ravens head coach Steve Sumarah says. “The biggest thing is the guys that came out today knew they had football skills.”
Many have played competitively at some level before. Most have been training for a few weeks to get into shape. All are passionate about the sport and say they have one more season left in them.
“I’m expecting to get worked,” Nicholas Goudie, a first-year law student trying out says.
Goudie says he played football for seven years, but a teacher strike last year ended his high school career early.
“I’ve been doing a bunch of cardio, a bunch of weightlifting, just trying to get in shape for the season. I know the guys on Carleton’s [team] are in pretty good shape. So I’ve got to try and match their level,” he says.
Toyin Odujebe says injuries kept him off the field for two years in high school and the local program he’d been playing for in Ottawa was cancelled.
“I’ve been preparing for today for four years. I’m here to show that, with God anything is possible,” Odujebe says. “Football is a passion of mine and I just wanted to keep playing. Any way to keep playing.”
He says he knows he’ll need more than raw talent alone.
“When I used to play it was more athleticism. You had to be fast, you had to jump high, but at this level you have to know your technique,” he says.
It’s something that people who don’t spend a lot of time around football miss. As much as it is about being fast and strong, the best players always have the best minds. They can see the play on the field and react.
I find this mental toughness critical in a half-hour tryout.
Coaches evaluate your every move. From the way you run from station to station, to your performance, they need to know if you’ve got it.
You can’t walk into this thinking because the Ravens lost all of their games last year it’s going to be easy. I did, and I ended up drenched in sweat after about five minutes. Clearly, my diet of pizza and beer is not doing me any favours.
Not quite halftime yet
The coaches say this Feb. 14 open tryout is actually just the first step in a gruelling process for a walk-on player to make the team. Next, there is a week-long winter camp with more indoor workouts, another camp in the spring, and, finally, training camp before the start of the season.
Not to mention regular weightlifting and conditioning to get into shape. “This has been stage one. Stage two means coming out and making the team,” Sumarah says. “So now we’ve seen enough that we want to bring the guys back, now it’s up to them to see how well they compete against our guys.”
Out of five players who were invited to camp after last year’s open tryout, only one was offered a roster spot, according to Jean-Phillippe Asselin, the Ravens offensive co-ordinator.
Compounding the difficulties for these players at the tryouts is that at the training camps they will be playing against highly-touted recruits. Unlike recruits, the coaches have never seen any of the guys at the tryouts play before.
This makes it difficult to project exactly how they will perform, says Darrell Adams, defensive line coach for the Ravens.
Adams is also the team’s strength and conditioning coach.
“We’ve watched [the recruits] play ball live and we can talk to their coaches who have experience working with them over the past couple years. Whereas with these kids coming in off the street, you don’t know what their background is and what their mindset is,” Adams says.
“They could be coming here just for show, they could be coming here as a prank. We need to weed these guys out early and find out who’s serious about learning and wanting to play football, ” he says.
Asselin agrees. He says there was a reason the walk-on players were not recruited right out of high school and the time off from football may have increased those issues.
“For those kids who’ve been out of football for a year, and were not the top kids coming out a couple of years ago when they were being recruited, to come here now to impress us, I think that’s a big challenge for them,” Asselin says.
“Some of them decided to go to Carleton not even thinking to play football, because there was not a program,” he says.
He says the recruiting process for high school players is competitive.
“We’re trying to make the best team, we want the best players,” he says. “We go from our list of 1,500 kids to get 20, so to go from a guy who was not recruited, to be on campus here to make our team is quite a challenge.”
For the love of competition
Most hopefuls, such as first-year business student Eesa Akroushe, have no delusions of grandeur—they go in with nothing but love for the game. “I love the hitting, I love the touchdowns, running through those holes, running through those defences, there’s nothing better,” he says.
Akroushe transferred from the University of Ottawa earlier this semester and says he’s done a bit of weightlifting to prepare for the tryout.
Akroushe says he’s willing to change positions just to get a spot. He says he’d move from running back—a premier position—to slot-back, which requires a player to block and sacrifice his body for the team.
As the tryout continues, current players make their way into the fieldhouse.
Things are different for them. They’ve been working out together since the end of the season and in one day they’ll come together for winter camp.
The team members are boisterous. They laugh and joke with the coaches, especially Adams, about getting into the gym.
Tossing footballs around, players like offensive lineman Jeff Veinotte don’t seem too concerned with losing their roster spot to one of the guys trying out.
“You never know until they put on pads, but if there’s someone good then I’m looking forward to the competition,” Veinotte says.
Adams says even though a couple of players put in impressive performances, it really doesn’t count until they strap on the pads and get into game situations.
“Competition is always there, whether they can have success is a different thing,” Adams says.
“We’re going to bring a couple guys out . . . and see if they can compete with some of the guys on the roster, and see if they can challenge them and be able to do some things that warrant an extended tryout in the future,” he says.
As for my performance on the field, it doesn’t take much deliberating for the coaches to realize I don’t quite cut it this year.
“I thought that you looked a little bit rusty, I’m trying to give you an honest feedback, but to be honest when you don’t do sports on a regular basis, it’s tough to get out here and perform to a high level,” Asselin says. “You didn’t do that bad for someone who did not do competitive sports right now.”
Those little things, like properly catching the ball, timing routes, and turning up the field after a catch, were where my lack of training caught up to me—and they add up.
They make the difference between sitting on the couch and strapping on the pads.
