Rick Moffat
CFL.ca
If you are a quarterback, he’ll sack you. If you’re a receiver, he’ll jump in front of the pass intended for you. Run back kicks in a pinch? He’ll take it to the house for you. Diamond Ferri will even do diapers.
“I’m a great father,” says the fourth-year Alouette and first-year parent. “I’m more of a mommy than a daddy, though. I do diapers, feedings, take Ana-Mia for rides in the car.”
Diamond and his partner Arianne are making a home for their six-month old. But it has taken years for Ferri to find a home on the field. Call it the curse of versatility.
In what is likely an Alouettes’ franchise first, Ferri completed a unique CFL hat-trick versus Edmonton last Sunday. A pick, a sack and an 85-yard kick-off return for a touchdown. Coming into this season, the former two-way player at Syracuse had three career CFL sacks, three career interceptions and three career kickoff returns.
“His first camp with us, Diamond wasn’t gonna make it,” recalls Montreal GM Jim Popp. “He was playing SAM (linebacker) not the WIL. We talked until midnight. I told him I wasn’t going to let him go and that he should sleep on his thoughts of leaving. I realized how passionate he was.”
In a move that mirrored Avon Cobourne’s switch from special teams hitter to starting tailback, Ferri went from return specialist and running back to full time defensive playmaker at linebacker (he’d been a corner and safety in college as well).
“He’s a head hunter,” says Popp. “And when he says he can do something… he can do it.”
“I’m always really cocky,” Ferri readily admits. “I’m always telling the guys I’m the best running back in the league AND the best returner. They always laugh at me. Now I get to rub in their face a little bit.”
“I’m just trying to bring my attitude. When I first got here, guys didn’t understand me, the way I was acting. People who know me now know I do interesting things … they thought I was a crazy Tasmanian devil and a loose cannon.”
He’s been that too. Coaches have tried to curb his enthusiasm for late hits.
But hitting the special teams and defence trifecta?
“It was almost like an out of body experience. It was like I was watching the play from the stands. Everything was just clicking, I couldn’t do anything wrong.”
The cliché says there’s no “I” in team. But Diamond, there’s one in pick, and kick-return TD, and interception?
“There’s an ‘I’ in Ferri. And in ‘Diamond’. I’m proud of my name and I love it. I represent what my name is … something hard, really hard. Not perfect. Not character issues, but flaws.”
Diamond’s mother Michelle taught her son that he was her diamond ring. Diamond’s father never gave her a wedding ring. In fact she didn’t want him around the boy. But Uncle Keith (Barnette) was a better influence. The former Vikings draft pick in the ‘70s almost swayed Ferri to his alma mater Boston College.
Ironically, Ferri would singlehandedly scuttle BC’s 2004 BCS bowl bid after two other Syracuse running backs were hurt. Diamond rushed 28 times for 141 yards, struck pay dirt twice and returned an interception for a score in the fourth quarter to seal the 43-17 victory.
“My Mom was at the game in Montreal. I gave her the game ball.”
She wouldn’t have been any happier with a ring.
