Ex-CFLers find life after football in bobsleigh

The end of another CFL season — and the start of a new bobsleigh World Cup campaign this week in Whistler, B.C., — brings a reminder that some retired football players are extending their athletic careers in an unexpected place. 

Many have transferred their skills from the gridiron to the top of a bobsleigh track.

Take Jesse Lumsden. He was supposed to be a pro football star, touted by scouts as one of the top players in Canada after a brilliant collegiate career as a running back at McMaster. He went sixth overall in the 2005 CFL draft and was invited to NFL training camps with the Seattle Seahawks and Washington Redskins.

But his career on the turf never gained traction as he struggled to stay healthy.

In the first game of the 2009 season, Lumsden suffered a season-ending shoulder injury while playing for the Edmonton Eskimos. It was time for him to start looking elsewhere.

His CFL run ended with a brief stint with the Calgary Stampeders in 2010, but by that time Lumsden had already found an immediate connection with another sport that rewards the kind of power and foot speed he has in spades.

"As soon as I touched the sled for the first time, from a physical standpoint I knew this was for me," he says. "I trained for bobsled my whole life without even knowing it."

Lumsden had joined the national bobsleigh program in 2009. The skills and physical traits that propelled the 6-foot-1, 220-pound athlete's football career translated well to pushing a bobsleigh, and he made it onto Canada's 2010 Olympic team.

"All my life I wanted to be a professional football player. I wanted to win a championship," Lumsden says. "So that passion has just continued on to a different sport."

For Lumsden, the 2010 Games were a learning experience as he finished fifth in both the two- and four-man events with pilot Pierre Lueders. Lumsden also competed in Sochi four years later, where he again missed the medals.

Now a member of pilot Justin Kripps' two- and four-man sleds, Lumsden is still chasing Olympic gold for the country he loves.

"The goal is to sing the national anthem at the Olympics," he says.

'It's like being shot out of a cannon'

Lumsden isn't the only football player turned bobsleigh athlete.

Within the last few years, former University of Saskatchewan running back Ben Coakwell, and former Calgary Stampeder and Saskatchewan Roughrider Keenan MacDougall have turned their attention to the icy track. Current CFL player Sam Giguere of the Montreal Alouettes is trying to balance bobsleigh and football.

Retired bobsleigh pilot Lyndon Rush, who won bronze at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and took silver in the two-man event with Lumsden at the 2012 world championships, played college football at the University of Saskatchewan and now works on developing bobsleigh athletes.

Coakwell credits Lumsden for paving the way for football players to believe bobsleigh could be an option.

"I watched the 2010 Games and Jesse was a pretty big name there. I watched his CFL career and it put an idea in my mind that it was an option after football," says Coakwell.

The former running back says the parallels between the two sports are uncanny.

"When the offensive line opens a hole and you see the field, that's what this is like. You see the track and it's like being shot out of a cannon," says Coakwell.

"We're firing a rocket down a hill and you have your teammates there with you."

MacDougall made his first run down a track last month in Whistler. Like Lumsden, his football career was riddled with injuries. The former special teams standout is still trying to find his footing on the track but is inspired by what he's learning from his teammates.

"I wasn't really sure how all the dynamics of bobsleigh worked. But training with these guys has opened my eyes to how much more to it there is," he says.

For Lumsden, Coakwell and MacDougall, joining Canada's bobsleigh program has eased what could have been a more difficult transition out of their old life.

"When you're a young football player you think you'll play the sport forever," Lumsden says. "And that's just not the case."