Seeding a sports legacy

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This article was published 15/10/2021 (1680 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The John Taylor Collegiate Pipers defeated the St. John’s Tigers 48-15 on Oct. 6, at the Nomads field, garnering the burgeoning team’s first-ever win since it formed this summer.

Logan Bourrie is a Grade 9 student who plays fullback, wide receiver and holder. Bourrie has been playing football for five years and was confident going into the evening’s game. The team has bones, he said.

Bourrie’s teammate, Liam Hutter, is proud the Pipers came together in time for this season. Hutter has a seven-year football career with the St. James Rods Football Club. The Grade 11 student describes his new league as highly competitive.

“It’s lots of hard work,” he said.

John Taylor Collegiate was founded over a half-century ago, and physical education teacher Jared Boville thought it was long overdue that the school have its own team.

Boville said that two years ago, there was a big group of Grade 9 students who were keen on the sport and wanted to get out on the field whenever possible. So, Boville helped rally the athletes. The team carved out a couple of weeks for preliminary workouts to get them ready to play exhibition games in the spring of 2019.

Then the pandemic hit. Since the division got the green light to return to play in recent months, students are geared up for the inaugural season.

“Our first-ever practice, I hadn’t even talked to any kid individually, and we had 36 kids come out,” he said. “Obviously there was a need. Obviously kids wanted this. The response has been awesome.”

There are currently 43 players on the team’s roster. Only nine of those students were previously registered through the Manitoba High Schools Athletic Association, which means that 34 team members had never before played a sport with John Taylor Collegiate.   

“It’s just awesome to see different kids from different backgrounds and different athletic abilities, different body shapes participate and have a place to belong and connect and exercise and work hard and be part of the school,” he said.

“That’s the beauty of football, there’s a spot for everyone.”

The decision to get the Pipers together was personal for Boville, too. Until now, Sturgeon Heights Collegiate was the only team in the division with a high school football team. Boville saw this not only as a chance to get his school on the scoreboard, but to allow students interested in football to see what his school has to offer.

“We wanted to keep our kids from the community in our community,” he said.

Ethan Aguirre, 17, is the Pipers’s running back. The Grade 12 student is new to the sport. Joining the team was a no-brainer for Aguirre. He described his school’s decision to form a team as “fire” as he took a quick break from warm-up to speak with The Metro.

Boville credits the support of the football community for helping make the Pipers a reality.

“People just want to see the sport grow and they want to see kids get involved,” he said.

Boville has big plans for the team’s future. As a self-described all-or-nothing person, he wants to see the group thrive and become serious competitors in their league.

“I don’t want a team, I want to build a program. I want something that kids can be proud of,” he said.

The Pipers, like many other schools in the Manitoba High Schools Athletic Association, are combining multiple grades to form a team. Within five years, Boville wants to form both a varsity and junior varsity squad.