The Carleton Ravens football team’s newest recruits go a long way towards “legitimizing” the program, head coach Steve Sumarah said.
Quarterback Nick Gorgichuk and wide receiver Nate Behar committed to Carleton last week. Behar, who is in his senior year at London Central Secondary School, is one of the top receivers in the country, Sumarah said.
“I think the biggest thing that he brings is he’s a very mature guy, his talent is unmistakable,” he said.
Behar said he’d spoken to just about every university in Ontario as well as a few more outside of his home province. The choice to join the Ravens ultimately came down to trusting his gut.
“Coming to meet the coaches and talking to them last weekend when I came to visit, it had the right feeling and a lot of it came down to that feeling,” Behar said. “I trust my instincts a lot of the time so when I came home and talked to all my family and friends, everyone kind of got the same feeling that I did.”
Having the chance to be a part of a brand-new Ravens team was an opportunity Behar said he couldn’t pass up.
“You don’t really get the chance to be the first person to do something, be the first generation or first class of a school’s football team too often,” he said.
Behar said the team’s “sense of direction” was one of the things that drew him to the program.
“Being a startup program, a lot of it is going to come down to how well you plan for it and how much effort you put in before the season starts of course,” Behar said. “Coach Sumarah, Coach [Ryan] Bechmanis and Coach [J.P.] Asselin, they all seem to know exactly what they want out of their players and out of their system.”
He added that as a young team, the Ravens will have to be patient as the program develops.
“I think our biggest assets as a team will be things greater than just our football abilities,” he said. “The ability to be patient and realize that better things are yet to come, and that the grass will be greener on the other side once you work for it.”
As a top prospect, Behar’s recruitment proves that Carleton has the chance to be competitive, Sumarah said.
“What it does is legitimize what we’re trying to accomplish,” he said. “We can get the top players, not only locally, but we can get them in southern Ontario and western Ontario in this case, and that says a lot.”
Sumarah also said it’s important to foster competition within the team, and the recruitment of Gorgichuk is bound to do just that. The Ravens have another star quarterback on their roster already in Jesse Mills, who played under Sumarah when he was the coach of the Saint Mary’s University Huskies.
“Both guys are going to have the opportunity to win the job,” Sumarah said. “We think that [Gorgichuk] and [Mills] are going to complement each other really well.”
Ottawa Junior Riders head coach Max Palladino coached Gorgichuk this past season and said he’s a great addition to the Ravens’ roster. Gorgichuk was named both player of the year and an all-star quarterback in the Quebec Junior Football League at the league banquet Nov. 17, with 2,136 passing yards and 24 touchdowns.
“Personally, I think Nick [Gorgichuk] is one of the best quarterbacks we have right now at his level in Canadian football,” Palladino said.
“A lot of universities have been after him and I really think he’s going to give [Mills] a run for his money.”
Sumarah said one of the most important things about recruiting is focusing on local talent.
Eight of the Ravens’ 14 committed players listed on Canadafootballchat.com are either Ottawa natives like Gorgichuk, or play for the Ottawa Sooners. Sumarah also said he has an open tryout tentatively scheduled for Jan. 20.
“We’ll run the guys on campus that want to come out through some drills and a little bit of a technical session just to see who’s on campus and who we think can help us,” he said.
“Obviously there’s a lot of buzz on campus about the program and what we want to do is make sure that we don’t miss anyone that’s sitting in our own backyard.”
