Murray makes B.C. U18 team

Prince George defensive lineman and fullback Josh Murray is heading to Burnaby for a Team B.C. football tryout.

Josh Murray’s path in tackle football could reach its end this weekend.

He hopes it doesn’t, and would prefer to compete in the most competitive football tournament of his life.

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But to reach that point, the 17-year-old will need to make the final Team B.C. roster for the 2010 Football Canada Cup, a national competition in the summer for players under 18 years old.

Murray, a fullback and defensive lineman, is on the list of 95 players who have received invites to a final tryout for the provincial team, Saturday to Monday at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby.

From there, a roster will be formed for the Football Canada Cup, scheduled for July 10 to 17 at Acadia University in Wolfville, N.S.

Murray, a Grade 12 Prince George Secondary student, is the only player from the city and one of two from the region who got selected for this weekend’s camp.

The other northern B.C. representative is offensive lineman Cam Brown, a student at Vanderhoof’s Nechako Valley Secondary.

Despite the honour of receiving an invite for this weekend’s camp, and the possibility of playing in a national competition on the east coast in July, Murray isn’t planning to play in an organized football league in the fall.

Since he’s finishing his final year of high school next month, the only way he could advance his football career would be by leaving his hometown, since Prince George doesn’t offer junior or varsity options in the sport.

Football has taken a back seat to other priorities for Murray, notably a girlfriend and commitment to work as an apprentice for his father Jeff at Central Interior Forklift in the fall.

If the offer came, would playing football at a university interest him?

“Yes and no,” he said. “It’s fun and all, but I’d rather be here with a good job.”

Murray and Brown were among a group of between 40 and 50 players at a regional tryout on April 17 in Kamloops.

The tryout, open to players anywhere in the southern interior and northern B.C., was one of four camps in the province. Regional tryouts were also held in Nanaimo (April 10), New Westminster (April 11) and Abbotsford (April 18). Close to 300 players tried out for this weekend’s camp.

Murray found out in late April he was selected to the roster for this weekend’s provincial tryout.

“It caught me by surprise. I was just sitting in my class,” he said. “My mom texted me and said I made it. I didn’t think they’d pick me up, the first time I played defensive line like that.”

To be eligible to compete in the Football Canada Cup, players must be under 18 as of July 31 and be born no later than 1994. Murray barely fits the requirement, as he’s celebrating his 18th birthday on Aug. 5.

Since there was an abundance of running backs trying out for Team B.C., a coach suggested to Murray that he focus on the defensive end, which is the position he’ll try out as this weekend.

At the regional camp in Kamloops, the players took on a series of individual and team challenges testing their speed, strength and agility.

“As we were doing our drills down there… they were just writing down notes about us and they just went by that,” Murray said.

Murray finished his third season suiting up for the PGSS Polars in the fall.

The team finished second in the six-team B.C. High School Football Association Northern Conference in the regular season, behind the eventual champion Kelly Road Roadrunners.

They lost to the Correlieu Clansmen of Quesnel in the playoff semi-final round.

“Last football season was pretty phenomenal for me,” Murray said. “Just at the beginning of the year I started working out, getting my footwork going and about halfway through the season I was just on fire.”