THE CANADIAN PRESS
Nothing matters more to Brandon Banks than winning. No matter where he’s playing, no matter what he’s playing for.
That’s why after what happened late in the fourth quarter of last Sunday’s Grey Cup Championship, the Ticats’ All-Star returner couldn’t even collect himself to get back in the game.
Banks, his team down 20-16 in the final minute of the game, returned a punt 90 yards for an apparent go-ahead touchdown. Signed and sealed but not quite delivered, a holding penalty took the play all the way back.
Heartbreak.
“I just felt like a championship was taken from me – not from me, from my team – and it feels like the greatest moment in my life happened, but then I turned around and it just didn’t happen,” Banks recalled on Tuesday as the Ticats cleaned out their lockers.
“It happened but it didn’t happen. I was heartbroken and it meant a lot for me.”
The 26-year-old wasn’t the only one in the stadium with a broken heart. Save for maybe (maybe) Stampeders fans and players, no one could help but feel for the young burner from Garner, N.C., the league’s fastest rising star.
“All I want to do is win and I didn’t win,” said Banks. “I felt like I worked so hard to get to that point, and to do what I did was like a dream come true.”
“You dream of doing stuff like that. It just hurt.”
Banks celebrated before realizing the fate of the play. He fell to the ground and was so emotional that he couldn’t get back into the game on offence. He couldn’t bring himself to do what he does for a living and what he loves most – play football.
After the game, he rushed past reporters and left the stadium. No shower, no interview. Only tears.
Young athletes from North Carolina don’t grow up dreaming of winning a Grey Cup, but on Sunday night that piece of hardware mattered more than anything in the world to the Ticats’ and maybe football’s most lethal weapon.
On Tuesday back in Hamilton, struggling to fight off tears at the thought of reliving the Grey Cup’s dying moments, he spoke to the media. Could anything feel worse than the end of that game?
“I don’t want to relive that moment ever again,” he said. Banks has faced personal tragedy in his life, and nothing that will ever happen in a game could compare to that. But in his football career . . .
“Not in football,” he answered. “In life I’ve gone through a lot of tragedy, but football-wise and career-wise, I just felt like that was a career-defining moment for me and it was just taken from me.”
Maybe it felt worse for ‘Cats linebacker Taylor Reed, the one who committed the foul. But while Reed took full responsibility for a penalty that could have been avoided – one that likely didn’t have any effect on Banks getting loose, anyway – Banks and his Ticats’ teammates said they held nothing against the rookie.
Banks said everyone including himself made mistakes in the game, while quarterback Zach Collaros said the loss came down to not finishing in the red zone more than anything else.
The more pressing question on Tuesday was about whether or not Banks, the electrifying young returner who had also started to contribute more on offence, would be back in 2015. He becomes a free agent during the off-season, and could pursue a chance to return to the NFL where he spent three years before.
He promised to stay a Ticat should he stay in the CFL, but that doesn’t assure he won’t land somewhere south. Banks said he didn’t know much about Canada or the league before coming here, but in two speedy years it’s found a place in his heart.
“I’ve gained a lot of friendship from a lot of guys up here. I’ve met Canadians, I learned a lot of Canadian things I didn’t know about this country,” said Banks. “I’ve been up here and seen different cultures, and the city of Hamilton and the passion it has for football.”
“I love it here and like I said, the relationships I’ve developed with the team and just being here – I love it here.”
At five-foot-seven, 153 pounds, Banks could have a career-long home in the CFL. Whereas special teams players come and go both in the NFL and CFL, in Canada he could follow the path of other smaller players like Chad Owens and Pinball Clemons, who started on special teams but later became offensive superstars, too.
His loss would hurt the league as much as the Ticats. Banks is the most exciting player in the CFL right now; one of those guys where every time he touches the ball, you hold your breath. You certainly don’t want to blink.
“We absolutely want him back,” said Kent Austin, head coach and general manager. “If you look at the last three must-win games, he put — and one got called back — five in the end zone counting the Ottawa game.”
“I don’t know anyone that’s done that in the history of football,” Austin continued. “I don’t know anyone that’s done that. It may not ever be done again.”
“So yeah, we want him back.”
Luke Tasker and Bakari Grant also have expiring contracts, leaving even more uncertainty on the Ticats’ offence. The hope is, though, that in this business of constant change, Banks and the others won’t want to walk away from what they’ve started – something they can all agree is pretty special.
“We all have a good relationship on this team, and I’m sure I’ll throw a text message in here and there,” said Collaros. “They obviously know that I want them here, and I think they realize that everyone wants them here. But they have to do what’s right for them and their family.”
For Banks, that’s what it’ll all come down to. Next up for him, he said, is quality time with his family, where he’ll have a chance to escape all of the last week’s events. Asked how he’d one day tell his kids about this game, he said he’d prefer not to.
“I don’t even want to tell them about this game,” he said. “I don’t even want to remember this game.”
“I would tell them that with these games, god has a plan for everybody. Everything happens for a reason and hopefully I get something better out of it.”
Instead, perhaps, he can write them a better story with a happier ending – something the Ticats hope he can do in Hamilton next season.
– With files from Ticats.ca
