Golden Bears and Pandas Athletics
“Sports doesn’t build character. They reveal it.” ‑ Legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden.
University football has its share of on-field ups and downs, yet the young men playing the game are learning even more valuable life lessons.
That message was delivered loud and clear by a pair of former Edmonton Eskimos players at the annual Golden Bears fundraising dinner held on April 7.
Eskimos Wall of Honour offensive lineman Chris Morris has been slowly restoring the University of Alberta Golden Bears program to its potential. Former quarterback Jason Maas has taken over the head coaching duties of the 2015 Grey Cup champion Edmonton Eskimos.
The theme for the night was “building community minded leadership in the hearts of young men” and it was a message that stuck on many different levels.
Both coaches pointed out that what happens on the field will be just a small part of their experience as they continue on their journey through life.
From a personal point of view, going to college at Oregon helped Maas refine not only as a top-notch football player, but helped him take his first steps into manhood.
As featured speaker for the evening’s festivities. Maas was able to convey how his own experience helped shaped the man he became today.
“I was fortunate to play every level of football from pee wee, to high school, to college to pros,” said Maas. “I feel that college football was what really defined me as a person and revealed my character. I learned a lot about teammates, dedication, working hard, perserverance. You learn a lot of attributes about being a quality individual. You learn a lot of that in college. That’s from the leadership from the top when you get there, to the coaches, players who are older than you. That’s the great part of college football. It’s a hodge-podge of older and younger and you learn a lot about people in college.”
More than any other sport, football has the greatest number of diverse personalities that somehow have to be meshed and pointed in the same direction. Some become stars, some become valuable role players. All learn valuable lessons.
“Football, you have a whole bunch of different personalities,” said Maas. “When I was in college, there were more than 100 players on the team. You’re dealing with a lot of different personalities, a lot of different backgrounds, different socio-economic backgrounds. You all had one common goal and one common vision given by your leadership. You had a lot of pride in the university you went to. You looked at that and remember those things and that’s where leadership comes from.
“Football has a lot of ups and down and you’ve got to be able to stick together during the hard times and create a brotherhood that sticks together and comes through.”
The attrition as a player reaches the pro level becomes more and more brutal, but no matter what the life path, the experience continues to stick.
“To me, you’re going to define what kind of individual you are coming out of college,” said Maas. “What you do after that is that you refine yourself. It’s not like you re-invent yourself. You invent yourself in college and understand what it takes for the rest of your life, whatever job you decide to pursue. Very few go on from high school to college and even fewer play professional football. For a lot of guys, it’s their last stop. So, they better get their education and that’s what’s going to help them be outstanding people in the community. The more of these guys we can get into the community, the better.”
Morris pointed out that character-building goes beyond the superficial X’s and O’s level and wins and losses on the field.
“Our whole purpose is to develop the young men and help them bring out their character,” said Morris. “You use the X’s and O’s, you use the motivation, the workouts, the games and you use that as a vehicle to develop into the people they can be.”
Morris knows what football has done for him and, with his teaching background, has little difficulty conveying those values to the young men he now coaches. Every coach has his own style to bring out the best in his players and Morris had definitely worked out a theme he can work with.
Morris: “Our model since I got here has been faith, family, school and football – in that order.”
“We follow that blueprint and we try to make sure when they walk away from it, they’re better people for it. That can’t be accomplished if all you’re trying to do is deal only with football,” said Morris.
“Football is about service, one player can’t win a football game. It’s not like other sports, where you have one or two dominant players and all of a sudden you can win. It’s about a whole bunch of people buying into it together, making that part of who you are. If you can do that, you can become successful.
“That’s what’s so nice about football and developing these guys. They leave here being consummate team people, then they go out into the community – into business, education or whatever – and that’s how they approach life. If they can carry on with that attitude, they’ll be an asset wherever they are.”