EDMONTON – Kurleigh Gittens Jr. will be instrumental in leading the charge in the air for the Elks next season.
The Canadian wideout was an important member of Double E’s receiving core last season, leading the way with 85 receptions — ranking fifth in the CFL — and setting a new career high. Gittens Jr. will come into the 2025 season as a major focal point in the Elks offence, with a full season of chemistry built in with QB Tre Ford and an offseason of training rather than rehab, the sky is the limit for the former East Division Most Outstanding Canadian.
GoElks.com sat down with Gittens Jr. to discuss what he has been up to prior to training camp for the latest edition of Elks in the Offseason.
First, how is your offseason going?
“It’s been good. I had started training, so that’s what I’ve been focused a bit since I got back home. Just train and get back to being a dad. I do have a trip planned with the family, we’re going back home to Guyana.”
What does a day in the life of Kurleigh Gittens Jr. look like?
“Right now I wake up, make lunch, my daughter’s first school snack, drop her off to school, come back and eat breakfast, and then train for a few hours. When I get back, I make sure I’ve got dinner prepared. Once I pick her up from daycare, we’re just chilling. That’s pretty much my day for the week.”
Living in Ontario, I imagine there are a lot of CFLers to train with?
“Yeah, there’s quite a few guys up here around the Toronto area. Me personally, you know I’m a little weird. I like to train with myself. I’ll meet up with some of the guys just to run routes, but for the majority of the time it’s just me and my trainer. At the facility there’s another CFL player that’s in there as well, but it’s not like a big crowd. So, I kind of like keeping on myself and you know, so working on myself.”
How different has this offseason been compared to last because you ended this season mostly healthy. I imagine the focus this year, it’s like a little less on rehab and more on just training and building up your body?
“Yeah, like you said, obviously training this offseason has been totally different. Obviously I got traded last offseason as well too, so I had to do deal with kind of like the mental aspect of just being traded and doing rehab on top of that at the same time, which is a little difficult. But this year it’s been pretty good, no complaints over here. I get to focus just on training for football instead of rehabbing as well, so that’s pretty much probably the biggest difference this offseason. I’m just putting my head down and just focusing on being a better football player and also being a better human as well. You’re a football player, but you have things to work on as a person, and for me, as a father as well. So a lot of self growth.”
Kurleigh Gittens Jr. goes up and gets it!@oktire #LDWeekend #CFLGameDay
📺: @TSN_Sports 🇨🇦 & @CBSSportsNet 🇺🇸
📱: CFL+ pic.twitter.com/K33zN83eQW— CFL (@CFL) September 2, 2024
Well, you talked about the trade, but it seems we are trying to bring Toronto to you. What do you think of all the moves that we’ve made this off season, including your ex-college teammate, Robbie Smith. How excited to have those guys over here?
“Robbie is one of my favorite teammates ever. We’ve been playing football together forever. It’s kind of nice to have him back here. Obviously, the type of player he is, he’s a very hard worker and he’s a great guy. He’s awesome. He also became a father a few months ago, so I’m excited for him. All around, just having good people around, and not just Rob, everyone that they brought in. They’re good people, good men. They’re good football players as well, and they’ll definitely help the locker room and obviously help our football team.”
Speaking of Wilfred Laurier, how cool was to be inducted into the Golden Hawks hall of Fame this offseason?
“Honestly, it was super cool. I didn’t even know we did that. One day I was training and I check my email, and I saw it. It brought a big smile to my face. I kind of got to reflect on my university career and it was a special moment, because I got to celebrate it with my family, with my daughter and my people from Ottawa. Honestly, I don’t even know what to think, but I’m still in shocked. I never thought when I started playing football, becoming a university athlete, that being a hall of famer would be attainable. But, with the hard work, your faith, and your passion for the game, you let that kind of play itself out and good things happen. So, it’s a blessing. It’s an honor.”
Have you been able to speak with Coach Killam or Coach Maksymic, and if you have, what were your first impressions of them?
“Coach Kilam, he hit me up actually and just by the sound of him — I haven’t met him personally yet, but you know sometimes you can kind of hear somebody through a text message, and that was pretty much him. He texted me and I could just hear all the excitement, like he was speaking to me, but through text. So it was just kind of cool. Usually, when someone texts you it’s just text. You can’t really feel anything, but I felt it through his text. He’s obviously excited and I hear nothing but great things about him around the league. So, I’m really just excited to kind of meet him in person and just to get to work with him. And coach Jordan, I haven’t spoken to him yet but our our receiver coach Jason Tucker reached out to us and said they’re working very hard on putting together the playbook. I’m just excited to kind of meet everyone and get to know them, not just as a football coaches, but as a people and forming that relationship. I’m really just excited to get back to work.”
I’ve spoken to wide receivers who’ve played under a Jason Maas style offense and they loved it. Are you excited to see what you can do under Coach Maksymic who was here under Jason and his offense is a branch of the Maas offense?
“In football, all you can do as a player is play the position, trust the coach will put you in a position to get the best out of you. I’m really just excited to see the playbook to kind of see what it is. I trust him, he had a good offence in B.C., so I’m really excited to kind of get to pick his brain apart a little bit. I’m just excited to play ball and excited to catch the football again.”
Are you excited to kind of take on that responsibility and kind of be the go to guy next year?
“The way I think about it is there are five receivers on the football field and we work together to complement each other, and if I got to do my job in order to get Dunbar open, to get Kaion (Julien-Grant) open, to get any other other receivers open, I’ll do it because I enjoy seeing especially my teammates succeed. If we can have that mindset of working as one, I feel like we’ll have a successful year. I got drafted in 2019 and I’ve been around a lot of OGs like SJ Green and Derel Walker, just the guys who’ve done it for a very long time at a very high level and watched how they’ve grown to be leaders. I’ve learned from those guys, and those guys were very selfless. So for me, my approach is just I’m just gonna be as selfless as I can and be there for my guys, and hopefully they’ll be there for me. We play off each other, we have lots of fun, keep it simple, and make plays. Let’s have fun together, and let’s run together.”