VANCOUVER — You’d be hard pressed to find a B.C. high school student-athlete who started the current academic year in September more prepared to stretch the limits of a standard 24-hour day than Jackson Findlay.And even though the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic have curtailed so many of the goals he had set for […]
High School Football
The singular focus of Ben Kolb: VC Fighting Irish’s UBC-bound kicker wears his ‘thinking cap’ inside his helmet as BCHSF’s 2020 Academic Player of Year!
VANCOUVER — Whether he’s wearing a football helmet or just his plain, old thinking cap, Ben Kolb is a study in focus.“I do think there are a lot of similarities between challenging classes and the pressure you experience on the football field,” the senior kicker/punter with the Vancouver College Fighting Irish explained Thursday over the […]
“He has the golden intangibles…” No one in BC high school football plays bigger than GW Graham’s 5-7 lineman & Chin Memorial winner Vince Ibardolaza!
ABBOTSFORD — Don’t try to tell Vince Ibardolaza what he’d can’t do on the football field.Instead, take a seat and watch what the undersized 5-foot-7, 210-pound offensive lineman with Chilliwack’s G.W. Graham Grizzlies can do.“He is really stoic and as even-keeled as they come, but a lot of that is his quiet confidence” Grizzlies head […]
VL Podcast 12.03.20: TSN’s Farhan Lalji on Subway Bowl, the Seahawks, Claypool and a coaching life well-mentored!
This week, the Varsity Letters welcomes an enduring friend of the podcast! TSN’s Farhan Lalji, a 31-year high school football coach in the province of B.C. stops by to chat with host Howard Tsumura about a whole host of topics. This coming Saturday at B.C. Place Stadium would have been the 2020 Subway Bowl […]
VL Podcast series debuts Monday: UBC’s Billy Greene, SFU’s Bo Palmer on Shrum Bowl’s 10-year absence and their own lives in and out of football!
LANGLEY — Plans for the resumption of the best football rivalry game in the province of B.C. were not actively underway when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March.Put it all together, and the fall of 2020 marks the 10th straight season that the Shrum Bowl, that formerly annual crosstown clash between Simon Fraser and UBC, […]
Who’s the kid on the corner? Hard luck shrouds Notre Dame Jugglers’ senior DB Antonio Cusati in anonymity, yet he is one to watch
BURNABY — Antonio Cusati is the cornerback who has been there and back.And if you’re wondering right about now just why his football journey is best described without longitudes, latitudes and the usual wash of statistics that best define a high school career, it’s because hard luck has made the Notre Dame Jugglers’ senior a […]
Chase Claypool: How four games from his standout 2015 senior season at Abby Senior left the clues which have now become conclusive with Steelers Nation!
ABBOTSFORD — Watching the breakthrough game of Chase Claypool’s young NFL career this past Sunday proved to be a prideful moment for John Barsby head football coach Rob Stevenson, despite the fact that back in 2015, his Bulldogs found themselves on the wrong end of a season-ending playoff loss fuelled by a performance many agree […]
A Sunday Tribute: For UBC’s Kory Nagata (1996-2020), football was a glorious portal to the possibilities of life
RICHMOND — Finding a perfect state of balance while doing the thing you love the most is powerful enough to change the way you see the world.
UBC football 2020: In wake of first cancelled season in 76 years, ‘Birds HC Blake Nill’s hopeful ‘redshirt season’ wish list includes the return of Shrum Bowl!
VANCOUVER — The first cancelled UBC football season in 76 years, and just the third over its 96-year history.
A Sunday Read: Undaunted by his challenges, Simon Fraser football recruit and Terry Fox grad Jaden Severy climbs to the top of Burnaby Mountain!
BURNABY — Late fall evenings atop Burnaby Mountain almost always include an atmospheric wonder best described as a rolling mist.