|
OOOOMPH!
WHACK!
CRUNCH!
Ah, the sweet sounds of sport!
Well, maybe not so sweet to non-jock ears,
but for these professional and weekend warriors
nothing could be finer, because
athletics has become part of their lives
|
MR. BIG
EVEN BEFORE he graduates this fall with a degree in Kinesiology, André Batson, 24, has scored big time in the sports world. He's been chosen as a back-up receiver (the guy who catches the ball and runs with it) for the Toronto Argonauts.
But if you think Batson(BSc'99) was a high-school football star, he wasn't. In fact, he often wonders what his H.S. coaches would think of him now. His main energies were off the field - focussed on his studies, he says. And he divided his off time between football and track. But Batson acknowledges he must have shown potential since various U.S. universities, York and the U of T were all wooing him. "I wasn't heavily recruited, but I was noticed," says Batson.
"I made the right choice," he says. "A professional player might last until he's in his late twenties. I'm playing it careful. I took a lot of computer science courses even though my degree is in kinesiology. I never lost sight of my academic side."
Still, he has his sights firmly set on the football field for now. "I couldn't believe it when I was chosen for the Argonauts," he says. "The teams' been around since the early 1900s and has a good reputation. And it's great to think I get to work with some of the legends in the sport."
Scouts from the Saskatchewan Rough Riders noticed his talents and drafted him to training camp in '97. But he didn't make the final cut for the team, and returned to York. Later he was unceremoniously traded to the Argos.
He spent this past summer slogging it out under the hot summer sun with his 20 lbs. of equipment. "It's not unusual to run 10 widths of the field and laps are slapped onto the end of the day if the coach feels we haven't done enough running during practice."
Batson's somewhat philosophical about his success, crediting a lot of it to Fate. "I'm sure it led me to where I am today. I came to York for academics, but got recruited to the team which led to the Rough Riders and finally the Argos. It's a storybook ending really.
"...a storybook ending"
|
