VANCOUVER — Welcome fans of B.C. high school football.If you’re a regular visitor to Varsity Letters, then you may be feeling a bit of deja vu this weekend.While we won’t be producing reports from games around the province each Friday and Saturday, we hope to be a familiar portal for you to get there.Each Friday, […]
Tag: bc high school football
The story of Gio and Theo: UBC’s book-end offensive tackles bring rare size and athleticism to the party! NFL teams and major pundits can’t help but be impressed ahead of 2024 draft!
By Howard TsumuraVANCOUVER — The story of Gio and Theo is the story of two ‘Made-in-B.C.’ high school football products who not only made the decision to play for their home university team, but along that journey turned themselves into the kinds of players with a chance to play in the National Football League.UBC offensive lineman […]
Having grown up in the game, Simon Fraser’s 1980 Shrum Bowl MVP Jay Prepchuk, a former UBC and SFU coach, cherishes the return of the grand game!
BURNABY MOUNTAIN — If there’s one area that any wannabe Shrum Bowl historian will find tough sledding, it’s determining the reasons why the series stuck to either U.S. or Canadian rules for extended periods of time throughout its history.For example, as local broadcaster and Football Canada president Jim Mullin points out, the reason the first […]
How Terry Fox’s Xyon Fleary became a giant in the Ravens’ backfield, and why he takes Terry Fox HC Tom Kudaba back to blocking for Larry Key on the 1970s BC Lions!
PORT COQUITLAM — In the preseason, the Terry Fox Ravens didn’t look at their compact and largely-untested senior running back as an X-factor kind of player.Yet as PoCo’s Triple-A No. 4-ranked Ravens (3-1) hunker down Friday (7 p.m.) at Coquitlam’s Percy Perry Stadium to host Surrey’s Lord Tweedsmuir Panthers (2-2) in the Central Division opener […]
For Simon Fraser Red Leafs’ defensive back Gideone Kremler, finding his inner ‘safety’ comes after a pain-stamped journey to the top of Burnaby Mountain!
BURNABY — A framed photo sits on the dresser drawer of his room in the Burquitlam rental he shares with six other housemates, and for Simon Fraser sophomore safety Gideone Kremler, all it takes is a simple daily glance back at his 12-year-old self to understand — despite all of the pain and disappointment — […]
From offence to defence, UBC’s Ryan Baker now the ‘tackle maker’ … Thunderbirds’ linebacker records 13 tackles in opening win! No. 9 ‘Birds at No. 2 Sask Huskies on Friday!
VANCOUVER — Ryan Baker came to UBC four years ago with a football resume seemingly as vast as the geographic dimensions of the school’s sprawling Point Grey campus.Now, five seasons into a gridiron career punctuated by not only the pandemic, but by a switch from one side of the ball to the other, the prowess […]
A message from Howard: After 40 years, I’ll bring a new writing direction to Varsity Letters for the 2022-23 high school and university sports season!
NORTH DELTA – Heartfelt greetings to all of you, my loyal, longtime readers.It’s been five months since I decided to take a break from my writing life.As was the goal from the very start, my decision to take sabbatical after 40 years of daily practice — first from my typewriter, and of course later, in […]
Saying ‘good-bye’ to Subway Bowl! After 20 years, B.C.’s high school football championships ready to embrace a new title sponsor!
VANCOUVER — It had one of the best names ever… you know, one of those names which so quickly became unforgettable, earning a place in our sports vernacular so accepted that we never, ever considered its eventual demise.Yet now, after two decades at the centre of most every conversation about high school football in this […]
Why B.C. high school football’s latest numbers might just be the first barometre of the new normal in our provincial high school sports world!
VANCOUVER — Set against the unpredictable backdrop of a pandemic now just weeks shy of its second birthday in this province, no one can yet fully define what the so-called new normal in B.C. high school sports is going to look like.B.C. high school football, however, released numbers earlier this week which may well provide […]
Subway Bowl 2021 gets its fitting finale! G.W. Graham Grizzlies edge Terry Fox Ravens 36-33 as BC high school football closes out a sizzling playoff season!
VANCOUVER — It happened somewhere around the time that Tyson Kelly picked up a bad point-after snap and ran it into the end zone for a two-point convert.Midway through the first quarter of Saturday’s Subway Bowl B.C. AAA Coastal final, Kelly and the rest of Chilliwack’s G.W. Graham Grizzlies had answered a game-opening touchdown drive […]