June 18, 2010
Arden Zwelling
CFL.ca
It’s not often that a linebacker beats a wide receiver in a competition of speed and acceleration.
That’s why you can forgive linebacker Cory Greenwood for bragging after he bested his Concordia Stingers teammate Cory Watson, a wide receiver, in the 40-yard dash at the CFL’s Evaluation Camp in March.
You have to strike while the iron’s hot, after all, and Watson feels fairly confident that things would turn out differently under the lights.
“He would never catch me on the field,” Watson quipped from Winnipeg where he’s taking part in his first ever CFL training camp with the Blue Bombers after they selected him with their first pick, ninth overall, in the 2010 CFL draft.
We may never get to see Greenwood chase Watson around a CFL field — the linebacker, drafted third overall by the Toronto Argonauts, signed a contact with the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs last month.
We’ll just have to settle for watching his former teammate, the 6-foot-2, 208-pound Watson, wreak havoc on CFL defences. If he makes the team, that is.
Watson is competing for a spot on the Winnipeg receiving corps, one of the toughest jobs to earn in any CFL training camp this year.
“I think we have a really good group,” Blue Bombers receivers coach Chris Wiesehan said. “There’s been a great tempo in practice.”
Wiesehan is in his first year with the Blue Bombers after several years of coaching in the NCAA and has been granted an embarrassment of riches at the wide out position.
CFL veterans Adarias Bowman, Terrence Edwards and Brock Ralph are veritable locks to earn the top three spots on Winnipeg’s receivers depth chart after they led the team last year with 55, 52 and 43 receptions, respectively, combining for 2300 yards.
After those three, the competition for the fourth wide out spot opens up. Aaron Hargreaves, who had 7 receptions for 71 yards with Winnipeg last year, appears to have the inside track. Meanwhile, import newcomers Chris Davis and David Ball are clearly in the running for a spot while Canadians Jabari Arthur, Scott McHenry and Watson are also in contention. It all makes for a very competitive atmosphere at camp.
“My goal is to contribute in any way that I can. Personal goals aside, I need to find a way to help the team,” Watson said. “I just have to be consistent in everything I do. I approach every game saying ‘I want to improve myself and help the team win.’”
Wiesehan said that rubbing shoulders with CFL veterans like Bowman, Edwards and Ralph has already had a positive effect on Watson who has been quick to adjust to the increased tempo of the CFL game.
“We have some good leaders in that group,” Wiesehan said of his receivers. “There’s been great communication every time we break the huddle and those veteran guys have kind of taken the younger guys under their wings.”
“Every day I’m learning a lot of things from the veteran guys that will hopefully allow me to be successful in this league,” Watson added. “Everyone here is clearly here to really work and be perfect in everything they do.”
Watson gives selfless sound bites like a rookie but the Jamaican-born wide out isn’t your typical freshman. At 26-years of age, he is one of the oldest first-year players looking to crack a CFL roster in 2010. He’s almost two full years older than Hargreaves, who already has two seasons of CFL experience under his belt.
His age has given Watson a sense of urgency at Blue Bombers training camp — it’s do or die for the CIS standout.
“There’s no real freshman year for me — it’s now or pretty much never,” Watson said. “I have to come in with the mantra that I need to contribute right away, rather than maybe in the next couple years.”
Watson’s age also gives him an edge in intelligence and maturity over younger, more wet behind the ears rookies. While there is naturally an adjustment period and a bevy of miscues for most rookies in their first CFL training camp, Watson has been able to limit errors and, according to Wiesehan, learn from his mistakes.
“He’s very good above the neck. He’s an absolute student of the game,” Wiesehan said. “There’s an ebb and flow of training camp where some guys have some mental lapses but he’s been able to limit those.”
Undoubtedly, much of that comes from his time at Concordia University playing for Stingers head coach Gerry McGrath, who is currently in Saskatchewan, volunteering as a guest coach with the Roughriders.
“At Concordia you’re expected to perform week in and week out and it’s the same thing here. You’ve got to perform,” Watson said. “It’s not what you’ve done, it’s what have you done for the team lately.”
McGrath kept Watson busy during his four years at Concordia — he led the team in all major receiving categories in 2007, 2008 and his standout 2009 season when he was the second best receiver in the country with 102.6 receiving yards per game.
“Working with Coach McGrath helped me tremendously because he runs everything in a professional style from camp to the day-to-day team stuff,” Watson said. “He stresses professionalism in everything which helped a lot in terms of getting prepared for life in the CFL.”
Much of Watson’s maturity also comes from his upbringing. The second-oldest of nine children, Watson’s single mother moved the family from Jamaica to Montreal — where his uncle and grandfather already resided — when he was nine years old.
Watson was relied upon at a very early age to earn income for the family and be a good role model for his seven younger siblings. While taking jobs to support his family and working through Quebec’s tough CEGEP secondary school program, Watson never abandoned his dream of one day playing professional football.
Even today, on the cusp of realizing that dream, Watson remains focused and driven to succeed.
“From being drafted to training camp, everything has gone really quick,” Watson said. “I’m assuming that once training camp is done with, I’ll have that day to go ‘okay, I’m here now.’ And then I’ll get back into it and get ready for game one.”
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