White buffalo kidnaps linebacker

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/06/2013 (4501 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

IT was brief, but intense. And a small scrap featuring Bomber offensive lineman Steve Morley and defensive tackle JT Gilmore certainly caught head coach Tim Burke’s attention.

But not in a good way…

“I don’t like it. I don’t think you should fight in practice and I told them that,” said Burke after Day 2 of Bomber training camp. “Why? You can’t fight in a game. Be a professional.

“I’m not into guys beating the crap out of each other. I mean, it’s going to happen. I know that. A lot of these guys are high-strung guys. You’d rather have thoroughbreds than mules.”

COMINGS/GOINGS: Bomber LB prospect Daniel Sheffield opted to pull the plug on his football career rather than report while the club added local receiver and Acadia product Taylor Renaud.

Said Burke on Sheffield:

“The white buffalo came and got him last night. He decided he didn’t want to play football anymore, which is too bad because we really liked him.”

The white what?

“You’ve never heard that? The white buffalo comes in the middle of the night and takes him away… it’s an old football adage.”

Meanwhile, it turns out Renaud had already made a few headlines in 2013 before the Bombers came knocking on Monday.

A training video of the former Acadia Axemen receiver went fairly viral on YouTube earlier this year after appearing on the Jimmy Kimmel Show.

“(My agent said) Keep sending me videos, I’m going to send them out to the teams,” Renaud laughed on Monday. “Me and my buddy were in the gym and there was a bit of miscommunication. I was doing a cone drill. I was supposed to finish the cone drill and I was going to run out and he was going to throw me a ball.

“This guy had an arm on him. I turned the first corner and boom, right away, got smoked with the ball right in the eye. So I threw it up on YouTube, figured I’d get a couple of laughs for my buddies and stuff and it blew up.”

MESSAGE DELIVERED: Burke fielded several questions on Monday about the team’s veteran secondary needing to be better in 2013. Asked how that message was being delivered and received, the boss was his straightforward self.

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“When you show up in the meeting room and there’s nine new DBs, I think that sends a message,” said Burke.

One of the newcomers who has jumped off the page early is Marty Markett, a South Carolina product who attended training camp with the Atlanta Falcons last year.

“I’m really excited about his athletic ability,” said Burke. “He’s extremely fast, he’s got a lot of football sense and he’s just now starting to pick up what we’re doing.”

HOT TICKET: Business was brisk on Monday not long after the Bombers put single-game tickets on sale over the weekend. During the morning, the team said it had released about 900 extra tickets for sale for next Wednesday’s pre-season game vs. Toronto. But those weren’t expected to last long and a sell-out of 33,500 was entirely likely for the first live CFL game in the new stadium.

TODAY’S SCHEDULE: The Bombers will hold the first of three two-a-day sessions today (8 a.m.-9:50 a.m.; 4:15-5:50 p.m.) All practices are open to the public.