A Yorkton prospect is headed east. Yorkton Raider Gridder player Garrett Ellis is going to the University of Toronto in the fall, joining the football team.
Coach Greg Marshall said that they are excited to have Ellis join the team, and that he’s got a bright future ahead of him.
“It’s always good to have a good Saskatchewan boy join the program.”
When they watched his film, Marshall said it was his speed that stood out, and they thought he would make a great return guy, and that he was showing constant improvement as a running back through the year.
“He showed some really good vision, and the ability to hit the hole and run away from people. He seemed to have a knack as both a kickoff and a punt return guy.”
For his part, Ellis is excited about his future, and is thrilled to have the chance to be going to Toronto and joining their football program.
“I am extremely excited to meet the coaches, meet the players I’m going to be with next year. Pretty excited to be under Greg Marshall, he’s a good coach, a great coach actually, he coached with the Roughriders. It should be a good time."
But the appeal for Ellis is also the university itself. Ellis is going into Kinesiology, and he’s glad to be going to the U of T to study it.
“Obviously they’re one of the top Universities in the world and the education standpoint really stuck out to me, as well as the football and the resources they have for all the football players as well as for academic.”
Marshall said that their goal is to build the U of T’s football program. Part of that is extending their reach outside of Ontario to build the program. Ellis part of the effort to extend their reach.
“We think Garrett is going to be a great guy to come in and represent the province of Saskatchewan and hopefully create some inroads there and create some other players to come here, which is the number one university in Canada academically, and we’re hoping to grow the football program to meet that.”
The U of T has their eye on Saskatchewan, and Marshall said that this province’s minor football programs are a great place to draw from.
“The kids are always well coached and well versed in their fundamentals. They’ve got a bit of that prairie toughness that they bring to the table and enthusiasm to play the game of football, and obviously the more players you get like that in your program the better chances you have to be successful.”
