A lot of hard work and taking to heart what he was told by the Winnipeg Blue Bombers when they released him last spring has paid off for former Gryphon linebacker John Rush.
For the second consecutive December, Rush has signed with CFL squad.
“It’s definitely a huge weight off my shoulders, being able to focus on just training for football this season instead of worrying about going into tryouts and that, such as running 40s,” Rush said. “I can just focus on really getting better on my on-the-field stuff so I can focus on my one-on-ones and stuff like that this offseason rather than that other kind of technical stuff where I’d be running 40s. I’m pretty relieved at this point and I’m excited to get back after it.”
Rush signed with the Bombers last year, a couple of weeks after being named the winner of the President’s Trophy as the top defensive player in Canadian university football. He attended the Bombers’ training camp, but was released prior to the start of the regular season. Before he left, though, the Bombers told him things he needed to work on.
“They gave me a couple of things,” Rush said. "They said that I was fast once I got to top speed, but I wasn’t fast enough getting to that top speed. They wanted me to work on my acceleration, my quickness, moving side to side laterally and stuff like that. They said that would be very beneficial for you and at the same time they wanted me to work on a lot of special teams one-on-one — getting off double teams, getting off blocks and being held and stuff like that.
“It’s a battle when you’re on special teams so they wanted me to work on some things like that, but overall they were happy with my performance when I was there. The roster in the CFL is so much smaller, they couldn’t keep me on. It was unfortunate, but I’ve been working on those things so I’m excited.”
Getting told he wouldn’t be sticking with the Bombers was tough to hear.
“It was upsetting,” he said. “It definitely wasn’t the way I wanted it to turn out, but you know I just kind of used it as motivation. Playing junior football and coming back into the CFL this season, I’m just using it as motivation. I’ve been here once so I know what it takes and I know how much it sucks to get cut so I’m going to do everything in my power not to let that happen again.”
While with the Bombers, Rush did play in a preseason games against the Montreal Alouettes and Ottawa Redblacks.
“It was pretty crazy,” he said. "Our first one was against Montreal in Winnipeg. I think we had 25,000 people show up for it. That’s more than double the amount of people I’ve ever played in front of and it was in a professional football stadium. So you run out of the tunnel in front of 25,000 people and they’re screaming for you. It’s like, holy, this is real life kind of thing.
“I was on kickoff and we elected to kick off so the first play of the game I was on the field. I don’t remember much of it. I can’t tell you what happened on the play or anything. I was so excited. I was shaking with enthusiasm. It kind of was like a dream come true, but obviously now the next step is to get in an actual game. The Grey Cup would be the ultimate goal, but for right now just getting in, making the team and getting in actual game play.”
To keep his football legs, so to speak, Rush played for the Hamilton Hurricanes in the Ontario Football Conference’s junior league."
“As a team, we had a great year,” he said. “I think we blew out every team we played. We lost one game on the season. It’s weird. I keep going 7-1 on teams which doesn’t make any sense to me. And we won the championship game which was a lot of fun, too.”
The junior league was quite a bit different than the OUA league that he’d played in for five years.
“It was different in the sense that the competition level between the other teams wasn’t as high,” he said. “Our team, the Hurricanes, even Windsor and Ottawa, the competition level is high. There are definitely some guys who could easily start and play in the CIS. No doubt in my mind, but some of the other teams kind of lacked that competition level.”
The Hurricanes captured their first OFC title in five years with a 52-21 win over the Windsor AKO Fratmen in the final and Rush was named the winner of the league’s defensive player of the year award.
“There are a couple of hundred kids in the league so to be able to stand out and be named the best really was an honour and it really speaks to how great our team was,” Rush said. “We had the best defensive line in the league. We had the best DBs in the league. We had easily the best linebackers in the league with me, Kwame Adjei who played out at Mount Allison and then went to the Roughriders and Farouk Musa who went to the U of T and then went to the CFL combine, but went undrafted. It was just a culmination of everybody just coming together. That defensive player of the year award should have been a defensive defence of the year award because we all could easily have won that. It was a crazy-good talented team and I was really fortunate to be a part of it.”
Rush is now training under the guidance of Shay Pierre, a former CFL player who now runs Pierre Elite Performance in Mississauga.
“He played three years in the CFL and now he’s a trainer, a speed and conditioning trainer for CFL athletes,” Rush said. “I got hooked up with him and I go see him five days a week. I’m just trying to get better every single day. I’m lucky because he’s been there and he knows what to expect. He knows what I have to work on. He’s a very intelligent trainer. He can see my deficiencies and I told him what I have to work on.”
Rush will still be on the University of Guelph campus in the second semester as he finishes his schoolwork. He has two classes to finish before he can graduate with a business degree.
“It’ll be pretty easy, I think,” he said. “I breezed through this semester, no problem. When you’ve been here for six years, you kind of know the ins and outs. I’m excited because I’ll be able to graduate with my BComm and then I’ll go out to Winnipeg, hopefully make the team and I’ll have my business degree so after that I can start working, be a contributing member of society, not a student degenerate. Kind of start my life.”
Working in his field will take a backseat while he pursues his opportunity to play in the CFL. At 23, the time for football is now as it’s not something he can put off.
“When I’m 40, I can’t do that,” he said. “I can never go back to the CFL or start training to be a football player. It’s nice that I have all those options, but it’s also nice that I can put some of those things on hold for my dream. It is kind of scary because I’m not sure how any of it is going to turn out. I hope it all doesn’t come crashing down on me. If it all works out, I’ll be a very happy person. I’ll be happy regardless, but I’ll be extremely happy if it all works out.”
For students contemplating attending the University of Guelph, or any university for that matter, he has some advice.
“Enjoy your time in university because you only get to live it once and after that, it’s gone and you can’t relive the university experience,” he said. "People think university is just about the degree and getting that degree and a lot of university is about getting the degree, but it’s also about the experience.
“If you kind of put your blinders on and focus too much on one thing, you’re going to miss out on a lot of opportunities. You can meet some really cool people and have some really cool experiences. You don’t want to miss out on that.”
However, he isn’t saying to ignore the schoolwork. Get that done, then enjoy the other aspects of university life.
“Make sure you get your schooling out of the way early,” he said. “Do everything you need to do and it’s not hard if you do an hour of it every day. Just don’t leave it until the last minute. When you have to cram, then you’re missing out on experiences that you could otherwise partake in. Try to get as much done as early as you can and then you’re laughing after that.”

Written by Rob Massey