Grant Park Football Star
Dreams of the CFL
By Scott Taylor, Photos by James Carey Lauder
To say Grant Park Pirates tight end
Patrick Young comes from a football
family would be understating the
obvious.
After all, his dad played for
the Transcona Nationals and
the Murdoch MacKay Collegiate
Clansmen. Of course, his sister,
Mercedes played the Winnipeg
Wolfpack in the Western Women’s
Canadian Football League and is
mom, Holly, still plays when she’s
not off serving in the Canadian
Armed Forces.
Patrick’s sister Mercedes with the Wolfpack
Fact is the Young family, which
originally hails from Wabigoon Lake
Ojibway Nation in Ontario, is a very
athletic lot and football now seems
to be at the centre of the family’s
love of competition. With that in
mind, it seemed kind of natural for
Patrick to start playing football as
a youngster. To be fair, however, he
wasn’t that young.
“I didn’t start playing until Grade
9 at Grant Park,” he said matterof-factly. “One of my friends took
my backpack and I chased him
down and tackled him. One of best
runningbacks, Michael Ritchott (now
with the Winnipeg Rifles) saw me do
it and told me I should play football.
So that’s how I started.”
He’s come a long way since he was
a walk-on wide receiver with the
Pirates. In fact, Young has become
one of the best players on the team.
“He’s the best Grade 11 player we
have,” said Grant Park head coach
Doug Kovacs. “He’s a tight end and
receiver who can play both positions
like a (NFL star) Jimmy Graham. He
needs to improve his blocking to
become an elite player, but he works
super hard and has a great attitude.
The fact that he hasn’t won the
starting job against a senior, but he’s
splitting series with the guy says a lot
about his heart and his talent.
“He’s also a good student, has
worked well in the community as a
volunteer and he’s very selfless. He
really has a great mom who is very
supportive. He has worked very hard
with Recruit Ready this off-season
and it has paid off. His speed and
skill level has increased dramatically.
Patrick is a future elite talent.”
Young will not argue with his
coach’s assessment. He knows where
he has to improve.
“Yeah, I’d call myself more of a
receiver than a blocking tight end,”
said Young, who is 6-foot-0, 168
pounds – rather small for a tight end.
“But I also back up the wide outs and
I enjoy playing wide receiver.”
Now in his first year as a varsity
player, it has only taken a couple of
weeks of the 2015 season for Young
to notice the incredible difference
between the Junior Varsity and
Varsity levels.
“It’s just a lot more intense,” he
said. “It’s coached with the same
intensity I was used to in JV, but the
players are all bigger and faster and
you have to be ready for anything.
You can really tell, from the first
Patrick Young, Grant Park Pirates
practice, that it’s a lot faster and way
more intense.”
It might be more intense, but it
has also convinced Young that the
team on which he now plays has a
great chance to be a champion. If
Young wasn’t playing on this year’s
Pirates team, he might be its biggest
cheerleader.
It’s not going to be easy – it never
is – for a small school like Grant Park
to compete against the WHSFL’s
Triple A Potter Division powerhouses
like Oak Park and St. Paul’s, but
Young loves his team. He also knows
this is a big week.
“I think we have a real good
chance to go all the way to the
championship game,” Young said
confidently. “We have an awesome
runningback ( Josh Weichel) and a
great quarterback (Peter LeClair).
Our offensive and defensive lines
are really good. Our linebackers and
defensive backs are outstanding. I
think we have a very good chance of
winning it all.” l
sportslife / 9