By Rob VanStone,
Regina Leader-Post
The most-accomplished graduate of the Usher Unicorns football program laments its disappearance.
“It’s disappointing,” Regina-born B.C. Lions slotback Jason Clermont says. “I was disappointed for the guys who put all that time into that program — Danny Paskiw and the other coaches. They poured their heart and soul in trying to put a program together.
“They’ve built up the weight room and the equipment that they have. It’s unfortunate that there’s no venue for those kids to play in this year. All the time that they’ve put in really can’t be put towards anything, so it’s a little disappointing in that regard.”
The administration and athletic department at Robert Usher Collegiate decided against fielding a team for the 2007 Regina Intercollegiate Football League season after only 19 players drew equipment for spring camp.
“It just comes down to demographics,” Clermont notes. “Feeding that school from those areas, the numbers are just thinning out. Unfortunately, it happened at McGuigan (High School) and now it seems to be happening at Usher.”
Usher was targeted for closure during the 2005-06 school year, but those plans were shelved. Does Clermont fear for the school’s future?
“I hope for the future. I don’t fear for the future,” he says. “I hope there’s enough young families moving into the Uplands area and by Usher so they can feed the school with not only enough football players, but with students, so they can keep it alive.”
Clermont can remember brighter days for the Unicorns. Most notably, he quarterbacked Usher to the RIFL’s 4A football title in the fall of 1995, when he was in Grade 12. That season, the future University of Regina Rams star was named the Stewart Conference’s player-of-the-year.
“Had I not played football at Usher, I think I might still be working at the Petro-Canada on Victoria and Winnipeg,” Clermont says. “What drove me to school every day and what kept me eligible academically was football and basketball.”
Clermont was encouraged to join the Unicorns football team in Grade 11 by Davin Kivisto.
“A coach who had coached me in minor football became an assistant coach (at Usher) and basically hit me upside the head and asked me why I hadn’t been playing high school football,” recalls Clermont, who resides in Regina during the offseason. “He came out and coached with Usher. I followed suit and came and played.
“He was a guy I really looked up to and I didn’t want to disappoint him. While I was kind of falling off the track academically and falling into some things that maybe weren’t the best situations for me, football and then basketball and my relationship with now my wife helped pull me back and straighten me out.”
Clermont’s resolve to better himself through athletics was strengthened in the summer of 1995, when he attended a football camp in North Dakota along with Shaun Machdanz of the Johnson Wildcats.
“It kind of opened my eyes that maybe I should devote my time to being an athlete as opposed to trying to do extracurricular things behind the school instead of out on the football field,” Clermont says. “That helped to straighten me out and cleaned me up. I just focused on that and on productive things.”
Talk about productive! Clermont is a two-time 1,000-yard receiver with B.C. He was named the CFL’s rookie-of-the-year in 2002 and the league’s outstanding Canadian two years later. He has also become a successful realtor with Royal LePage.
Productive time spent at Usher set the stage for Clermont’s subsequent successes. Does he ever marvel at the impact Usher athletics has had on his life?
“That’s what life is all about,” Clermont reflects. “It’s all about the choices that you make and the consequences of them. I was very fortunate that somebody cared enough to ask me why I was doing what I was doing and encouraged me that I had other options.”
