Toronto's fab football four suit for world team against U.S..
The world is set to take on the U.S. for junior (under-19) football supremacy Wednesday night in Austin, Texas. More than half of the 50-member world team hails from Canada including Forest Hill Collegiate's Winston Miles, left, Chaminade College School's Tevaun Smith and Marcus Grandison and Northern Secondary School's Peter Godber.
Photo/SHAWN HUBBARD
The world is taking another shot at the U.S. in youth football Wednesday, Feb. 1 in Austin, Texas, and, amazingly, four former members of a North York-based football club have made the 50-member lineup.
Canada has provided more than half the players while the remaining spots are taken up by players from several other countries, including American Samoa, Australia, Austria, France, Japan, Mexico, Spain and Sweden.
Two of the four Toronto players also used to suit up for North York's Chaminade College School; they are wide receiver Tevaun Smith and defensive back Marcus Grandison.
The other two local players are offensive tackle Winston Miles who played varsity football for Forest Hill Collegiate and offensive lineman Peter Godber who has split his high school football between Northern Secondary and is currently with St. Andrew's College (in Aurora).
Three of them - Smith, Grandison and Miles - played for the world team in last year's game, a close 21-14 loss to the U.S.
In fact, Smith earned game MVP honours for the world team for his play, which included an early 79-yard kickoff return.
After wrapping up a prep year at Kent School in Connecticut, Smith recently verbally committed to the University of Iowa.
Grandison and Miles currently suit up in Canadian university football for York and Western, respectively. As such, they'll be familiar with at least one of the world team coaches - the head coach is Greg Marshall from Western and the defensive co-ordinator is Warren Craney from York.
Godber, who played for St. Andrew's College this past season and Northern the previous year, had a tougher road to make the world team.
He was one of eight players chosen from the world team's development camp after it wrapped up four days of practice in Texas.
The game will be available live on CBS Sports Network (in Canada and the United States) and available online 72 hours after its conclusion.
This is the third year for the international under-19 competition. The U.S. U-19 team won 21-14 last year and 17-0 the previous year.
Coach Marshall was certainly happy to have last year's world team MVP back.
"Last year I thought Tevaun (Smith) was a great athlete, but now he's a developed athlete," Marshall said in an interview on the organizer's website. "He's thicker, he's stronger and there's a reason he's a Division I commit to Iowa. He's that kind of player now."
More info at http://www.ifaf.org
- Norm Nelson