By Howard Tsumura,
Vancouver Province
You can’t, as Brad Newman explains, have any better training ground as a linebacker than to grow up as the youngest of four brothers, each separated in age by a year.
“We fought for clean underwear. We fought for clean socks. Pretty much everything was a fight,” laughs UBC’s fifth-year defensive guru of the tenacious tackles and hellacious hits that were commonplace growing up with brothers Ryan, Brent and Kevin.
So when No. 10-ranked UBC (3-2) takes to the field tonight (7 p.m., AM 730) at Swangard Stadium against the crosstown rival Simon Fraser Clan (0-5), expect Newman — as always — to come out charging like there’s fresh laundry in the basket.
After all, when you’ve been thrown into the vicious spin-cycle of injuries and refused to let the frays impede your way, there is a satisfaction that comes from knowing you refused to fold. Not from a season-ending knee injury in 2000 with the junior Tri-City Bulldogs, and not from the pelvic injury that claimed his 2004 season at UBC.
“I think each of my brothers had their own characteristics and that really helped me because I took something from each of them,” says Newman of the collected wrinkles that have become a part of his wash-and-wear persona. “They helped me develop my own personality.”
In old-school terminology, Newman hits, and hits hard. Old timers will tell you he plays the game the right way.
Yet he also plays with a New Age twist.
As the 1999 grad of Burnaby’s St. Thomas More Collegiate began to come into his own at UBC, he entered the 2003 season ready to step into the shoes of CFL-bound linebacker Javy Glatt. Newman now explains that he knew he wasn’t feeling quite right, but that he foolishly decided to play through his pelvic pain, which he endured for an entire 0-8 season.
“I knew I had the injury but I didn’t know the full ramifications of it and basically, it just destroyed me,” explains Newman, a geography major whose team-leading 31 solo tackles had him fifth overall in the Canada West prior to play last weekend.
Newman was suffering from osteitis pubis, the same injury that shelved former Canucks’ winger Trent Klatt. His road to recovery came through noted physiotherapist Randy Celebrini and a physical warmup routine he does before every game and practice.
“There’s a lot of talk of what it looks like,” smiles Newman of the warm-up, which is a little bit hidden tiger and a little bit crouching dragon.
“It gets my core muscles firing, and because of my injury, it warms up my hips and my pelvis and keeps everything fluid.”
Quite a change from his days as a prep star at St. Thomas More?
“Back then, I was all about whose lights I was going to knock out and who I could run into,” Newman admits, casting an eye towards what he hopes will be a CFL future like his friend and former teammate Glatt.
“I would hate to do all this work and have it fall short. I definitely want to extend my career into the CFL and see what else life brings.”
