Arjei Franklin
CFL.ca
Football really is the ultimate team sport. The fact that you have 300-pounders on the same field as 170-pounders forces you to rely on your teammates to take care of their job. You see, each member of the team is designed to do a specific job, so you have no choice but to trust in each other. This causes a team to form some pretty tight bonds between players. As I think back to my years in football some of my closest friends were once teammates of mine. You could almost go as far as to say that a brotherhood is formed in the locker room.
Just like any sibling relationship there will be teasing, joking, making fun of, and your occasional arguments. I can’t actually tell you why, but for some reason I have become the prime target of most of the jokes being told in the receiving corps. Recently, it has been the fact that in my almost three years of pro football, I haven’t scored a touchdown.
Well, I can’t tell you how happy I am to say that my teammates won’t be able to use that joke on me anymore, because I finally got into the end zone last week in Winnipeg. Now I have had some pretty close calls this past season, but scoring my first TD with a 73-yard catch-and-run was pretty special. Especially in a big win.
The best part about the whole experience was seeing how happy my teammates, coaches, fans, friends, and family were for me. My only hope is that in the case of touchdowns, when it rains … it pours. Now I have to be honest; even though my fellow receivers can’t joke about me not having a touchdown anymore, I can almost guarantee you that they will come up with something new.
More important than any one touchdown is the fact that we have strung three wins together and have taken sole possession of second place in the East. The beauty of it all is that despite the bad start we had as a team, we are right in the middle of a playoff hunt with only five games left. If there is one lesson to learn it’s that this is a very long season, and it is just as important to finish strong as it is to start strong. That being said, there are five games left and our fate still hangs in the balance.
After a hard fought game in Winnipeg against the Eskimos, I’m pretty sure both teams can’t wait to get back at it in Edmonton this weekend. So don’t miss it. I assure you it will a good one.
Arjei Franklin is a third-year receiver with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. He was the Bombers’ top pick in the 2006 Canadian Draft.
