Rory Barrs
National Post

TORONTO -- It was not yet the crack of dawn, and Wilkerson DeSouza’s taxing routine had already begun. It started at 4 a.m. in the Mississauga home he shares with his mother and younger brother, and began in earnest at 7 a.m. when he arrived for his 10-hour construction shift.

Then he would sneak a 20-minute nap while riding the bus to his 4 p.m. training session with the University of Toronto Varsity Blues’ strength and conditioning coach, a session that included an hour of speed drills and an intensive weightlifting regimen.

All to prepare for his fourth season with the Varsity Blues, the last season before he would become the last pick in the CFL draft.

“I’d get home at like 9:30 at night,” said the Blues linebacker. “It was the hardest summer that I ever had to go through.”

Adversity has always been part of the game for DeSouza, who has worked to help out his single mother with groceries, and more recently the rent, since high school. And last week’s CFL draft was no different for the 25-year-old. Forty-four names came and went before the Calgary Stampeders ended the day by calling DeSouza’s name.

“The whole wait was a little brutal,” DeSouza said. “I guess God knows how to motivate me more. Everything that happens in my life, there’s always a reason for me to push harder and harder. Now I have an even bigger chip on my shoulder.”

DeSouza will need that motivation to persevere against considerable odds at the professional level, where the game is markedly faster and tougher, and rosters are crowded with U.S. imports — especially at his linebacker position.

He welcomes the tag “Mr. Irrelevant,” originally used to disparage the last pick in the NFL draft, but since adopted by other leagues and sports. He has never backed down from a challenge.

“As far as picking up the game at the next level, I don’t see a problem for Wilk,” said Univerity of Toronto head coach Greg Gary. “The thing I think he is going to bring right away is his motor … the energy that he plays with.”

A realistic goal at least in the near term, will be carving out a role on Calgary’s special teams. And if DeSouza has an advantage in making the leap to pro football, it could be his ability to adapt to change.

In four years with the Blues, DeSouza played under three different defensive coordinators. But he led the OUA in tackles in 2010, and last year became Toronto’s first player since 2008 to be named a first-team all-star in the conference.

DeSouza was born in Brazil and raised in Mississauga. He returned to South America with his mother and brother after his parents divorced while he was in Grade 7, but came back to Canada at the start of high school. Soccer was his first love, but after taking up football in Grade 10, he had found his calling.

“Football is very important to him,” Gary said. “His hobby is training.”

A roster spot with the Stampeders is far from guaranteed, but John Hufnagel, Calgary’s head coach and general manager, said he would not have used one of his club’s eight draft picks on a player who did not have a legitimate opportunity to make the roster.

“We liked what we saw on film,” Hufnagel said. “I think right now, I’m hoping he can be a big contributor to our special teams play.”

In 2006, DeSouza captured an Ontario Varsity Football League championship with the Etobicoke Eagles, and was named the league’s most valuable defensive player, but spent the next two years out of football, nearly retiring for good.

“After I won the championship, I was ready to start working for the rest of my life,” DeSouza said. “Just because of the whole financial thing. But then one of my coaches told me that there were teams interested in me.”

Taurean Allen, a former teammate who was also a defensive back with the Stampeders, was the one who ultimately convinced him to not give up the sport.

There will be no 10-hour drywalling shifts this summer, but DeSouza’s first professional training camp will be no less demanding. At month’s end, he will pack his bags for Calgary, leaving his family for the first time in his life while trying to show the Stampeders that he is anything but irrelevant.

“I’m excited for it,” DeSouza said. “These challenges in life bring out the best in me.”