All I ever wanted was a chance. A chance to be part of something. Something larger than myself.
I picked up football in grade 10 when my high school basketball coach Alfie DeMelo strongly suggested (synonym for forced) myself and my teammates to play fall football to toughen us up for winter basketball.
At the time I was confused by the idea of playing football. I always enjoyed NFLSunday’s and throwing the ball with my Dad at our house in Glenburnie North of Kingston but structured football?! Never have I ever.
I asked to play quarterback (every kid under 16 does) but was assigned to tight end. I spent the year getting my head bashed in by much stronger, thicker defensive ends in the KASSAA loop. How I survived I will never understand.
In the second last week of our regular season starting quarterback Dave Ryttersgaard cracked a rib. It was time for ole #93 to sling the rock in the season finale. In my first start as a quarterback for the proud Frontenac Falcons football program I went 0-3 for 0 yards, 0 touchdowns and 0 interceptions.
A Quarterback rating of 39.6. barely surpassing the giants of the NFL quarterbacking world.
With that I took a bow and said farewell to my helmet and shoulder pads for good. That was the plan.
Why Not Eh
That winter the new tougher look Falcons basketball team went 37-4 with our only losses coming to Toronto area powerhouses. We won the Kingston area title in our sleep. The closest game being a 12 point nap inducing free throw shootout in the city championship game against KCVI.
That summer I was approached by senior football offensive co-ordinator Mark Magee. He asked me if I was coming out in the fall. I laughed and said, “you already have a quarterback”. I assumed our cracked rib starter was a shoe in for the job. Magee replied, “see you in the fall” smiled a walked away. An image burned in my memory.
That fall at training camp I ran a 5.7 second 40 yard dash ***THIS IS NOT A TYPO***. A number burned into my memory.
Senior head coach Mike Doyle asked me if I was injured? “Nope just slow” I happily replied.
I backed up an OFSAA champion Frontenac squad that year. The starter Ryan Clark was again expected to return the following season as a 5th year senior predictably leaving me to watch from the sidelines again.
That summer I tried out for the Limestone Grenadiers of the OVFL. I got the starting job and aptly went 0-8 while throwing 20 interceptions. *** THIS IS NOT A TYPO***.
After OVFL season finished I returned to the FSS field to perfect my craft.
Rain? Throw.
Get kicked off the field after fresh sod was laid down? Throw.
Finish working 11pm-7am at Metro and 730am-3pm at Canadian Tire? Throw.
I loved it. I was hooked, but I had no idea what I was doing.
One day a wiry cross country runner and rec hockey player named Ben O’Connor came (got dragged) to the field by our mutual friend Simon Ryder-Burbidge. I had never talked to Ben before but if he was friends with my friend that was good enough for me. I’ll never forget my first throw to Ben. He strapped on a helmet at the field behind Frontenac and bluntly asked “what do you want”?
I transformed into a 1960’s ball coach and replied “go straight 10 yards then run towards those metal things in the middle of the field”. I sailed a post throw over Ben’s head.
0-1.
He turned around 30-40 yards down field snapped off his helmet chin strap like Brett Favre after an interception and screamed “IF THAT’S HOW YOU THROW THIS RELATIONSHIP ISN’T GOING TO WORK”!! More on Ben later.
Blind to my lack of skill, knowledge and application of either, I returned to the high school senior team to find out that the starting job was available. Mr. Clark had decided to attend Queens University instead of returning. I happily accepted my role as quarterback and team leader. My honest thought being, “hey this can’t be any worse than 0-8 with 20 ints right?!
National Capital Bowl Champions 2008
We went 13-0 and won a provincial championship.
We played out of our minds for two plus months under the guidance of an incredible coaching staff. Doyle, Magee, Johnston, they truly got the best out of us including a 10-15, 167 yard, 2 touchdown performance from yours truly in the finale of our grade 12 season. A 143.6 quarterback rating. Just as those coaches envisioned when they saw me go 0-3, 0, 0, 0 two seasons earlier. It truly was the greatest group of guys I had ever been around and some of the happiest days of my young life.
Our final game was played at Skydome in Toronto. I had no idea scouts and universities attended these sort of things. I just wanted to play sports with my friends at a place where there were more than 100 seats. Ben played incredible catching anything I put in his area code. After the game I was fortunate to be introduced to many CIS coaches and recruiters while receiving a game ball signed by Dan Marino and Jim Kelly (still on display in my small windowless Syracuse orange basement bedroom).
I was blown away by the interest from all these men and flattered by their advances. Everyone was great but one stood out.
McWhat?
As I spoke to a coach from St. FX while imagining myself in blue and white as the pride of the ‘Nish a vision appeared before me.
A monster of a man in a maroon golf shirt grabbed my shoulders turned me around mid- sentence to X man and said “ahh you don’t wanna go all the way out there it smells like fish. Hey Marshall I’m Adam Archibald”.
Wait.
Th.. Theeeeee Adam Archibald? The guy I had never seen play but had heard won two national capital bowls, the game which I had just played in? The touchdown jesus of millenium Falcon football? The guy whose locker I was assigned in grade 12 before I ever knew who he was? Yes. That Adam Archibald.
He pitched McMaster University to me. MAC? Never heard of it. Hamilton? I heard its awful there. Thanks but no thanks.
I chatted with Arch for a couple of minutes doing my best not to say anything stupid before being whisked away by coaches in order to reach our bus home to Kingston on time. That first impressions importance remains crystal clear in hindsight.
Back To Bac….Finished
Unlike my predecessor I returned to Frontenac for my 5th and final year. Ben was back, Simon was back. Magee, Doyle and Johnston were ready to go. It was time for the unstoppable Frontenac Falcons to take flight and soar above the Kingston competition (typical Whig Standard line during my senior football days).
Everything was going to plan. Our biggest competition Holy Cross Secondary came to us midseason and we tossed them aside 34-10 behind a 16-20, 4 touchdown game.
As Patrick Kennedy of the Kingston Whig Standard wrote, “Frontenac Falcons quarterback Marshall Ferguson doesn’t wear a badge or a gun. But he does have a rifle and the authority to use it, which he did yesterday in defeating an invading pack of Holy Cross Crusaders”. Man football is fun when you’re winning.
Fast forward to the city championship game in 2009 Frontenac vs. Holy Cross at Loyalist Collegiate, the same field I went 0-4 on in the OVFL while throwing 35893845 interceptions.
We struggled to move the ball by any means. My biggest regret of that game? Telling my QB Coach/OC Mark Magee (who played a huge role in my development as a young player) NO when asked if I wanted to call my own plays in the 3rd quarter.
Lesson learned: Attack every opportunity.
A 28-9 loss left me sobbing in a ditch next to Bath road like a lost first year from 2008 Queens homecoming who had just been dumped and my high school career like that frosh’s chance to get her boyfriend back was suddenly gone.
Quick side note: Then Ottawa U Head Coach J.P Asselin approached me while I lay face down in the grass asking to speak to me. Without looking up or recognizing the voice I promptly requested he vacate the premise in a far less sophisticated manner.
I kept my options open while visiting many schools all within the OUA but I knew Mac was the one for me. The coaching, the people, the environment, the academics. It all fit. I visited campus with my parents in March of 2010 and asked my mom if it was okay for me to come to Hamilton. Her response, “All we want is for you to be happy”.
I committed to McMaster ten minutes later. I had no idea what I had just done.
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