The York Lions have announced that quarterback Nick Coutu of St. Catharines will join the football team for the 2008 season.
Coutu, 19, led the Sir Winston Churchill Bulldogs high-school team to regional titles in 2003, as a starter in Grade 9, and 2007. He also plays for the Niagara Spears in the Ontario Varsity Football League.
Right: Nick Coutu
“Nick is a leader,” first-year Lions head coach Mike McLean said. “He has shown the character that is a perfect first block in building the foundation that will become York football. He has got everything we want in terms of intangibles.”
The 6-foot-3, 170-pound Coutu was named rookie of the year at St. Catharines' Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School in 2003 and also played as an underager with the Burlington Braves of the Canadian Junior Football League.
“I like nothing more than being an underdog,” said Coutu, who will help usher in a new era of Lions football along with McLean and first-year offensive co-ordinator Beau Mirau. “I really like the situation at York. It has pretty much everything I am looking for.”
Coutu has been on McLean and Mirau’s radar screen for several months. The Lions coaches scouted him extensively during the off-season.
“We are bringing him in to be a main building block,” Mirau said. “The athletic ability he has as a quarterback is exactly what we need.”
The Lions open the 2008 season on Labour Day, Sept. 1, at 1pm, against the Windsor Lancers at York Stadium.
Story submitted to YFile by Mike Koreen, sport & recreation information officer in York’s School of Kinesiology & Health Science, Faculty of Health.