The Carleton Ravens football program will have its own version of brotherly love on the field for the 2014 season.
The team has announced defensive back Kadeem-Jovan Vaillancourt has transferred from the defending national champions from Université Laval, who will join his younger brother Dimitri on the Ravens roster.
While the elder Vaillancourt comes to the team as a defensive back, his younger brother comes to Carleton as a wide receiver from St. Francis Xavier Catholic High School in Ottawa.
Both brothers said they are looking forward to playing with each other from both a personal and team perspective.
“Playing alongside my brother helps me as a younger player,” Dimitri said. “I feel like there’s someone on my back pushing me to get better. When you have that, you do get better and you want to succeed more.”
Ravens coach Steve Sumarah said Kadeem-Jovan brings a number of desirable qualities to the table for a young Ravens team, including tremendous size and strength for his position.
“He’s a big defensive back—6-3 almost 6-2,” Sumarah said. “He would be what they consider a shutdown corner. He’s a guy that can line up against the best receiver on the other team and he’s going to win a heck of a lot more than he loses.”
The elder Vaillancourt also brings with him Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) football experience, having won the Vanier Cup in the 2013 season with the perennial contenders at Laval.
“He’s played at the CIS level and has been very successful, and for us, that’s just a huge component,” Sumarah said.
Kadeem-Jovan said he knows how important that previous playing time will be for a young Ravens team this fall.
“I’ve experienced some of the situations that they’re going to experience, so I can really help the guys out in those situations and help us win games that way,” he said.
As of June 16, the Ravens football team received the second-best grade in Canada for its 2014 recruiting class, behind only Laval—something Dimitri said speaks to the growing reputation of the program as a whole.
“It just shows how Carleton is growing as a school, and how Carleton is growing as a football team, and how we’re striving to get better and want to work hard and succeed,” he said.
Aside from playing in his hometown and alongside his brother, Kadeem-Jovan said the building process of the Carleton football program was a key factor in committing to the Ravens.
“I love the plan,” he said. “I saw the future of the team and I really bought into that.”
Sumarah said part of that plan is having a core component of players from the Ottawa area on the team.
“Any time you can get a top-notch local guy, it’s a game-changer. It makes a big difference in getting out there in the Ottawa community,” he said. “To have this many top, local players playing at your university speaks volumes.”
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