E-Camp: Canadian QB Sinopoli wants a shot

Arden Zwelling
CFL.ca

Sam Sinopoli has taught math at Crestwood Secondary School in Peterborough, Ont. for just about as long as anyone can remember.

But while thousands of young minds have passed through his math classrooms, Sinopoli is better known for coaching the Crestwood Mustangs, who this year won their fifth straight Central Ontario championship

And come April he may be known as something else entirely – the father and mentor to one of the rarest of feats in Canadian football. A Canadian quarterback drafted into the CFL to actually play quarterback.

Ever since he was old enough to walk, Sam’s son Bradley has been joining his father on the sidelines at Crestwood which is right beside James Strath Public School where Brad spent his formative years dreaming of pigskins and uprights.

“I would be over there at the field every single day ever since I started Kindergarten. That’s where I really developed a love and a passion for the game,” Sinopoli said.

It was a long, eight-year wait until finally Sinopoli hit grade nine and began playing for the Mustangs himself, under the tutelage of his father.

He immediately took over as starting quarterback, winning Ontario Bowl championships in his final two years at Crestwood, before leaving for the University of Ottawa where he brought home a different kind of prize – the 2010 Hec Crighton Trophy as the most outstanding CIS football player in the nation.

Leading the country in every passing category that matters – 2,756 yards, 22 touchdowns, 344.5 yards per game – Sinopoli was an obvious choice for the league’s highest honour, even though his Gee Gees lost by one point in the dying seconds of a thrilling Yates Cup final to the Western Mustangs this past season.

“Even though things didn’t go our way in the Yates Cup, we still had a heck of a season and I have a lot of memories from it,” Sinopoli said. “I don’t really look at the Hec Crighton as an indicator of how successful my season was but of how memorable it was. And this one was certainly pretty memorable.”

Ever since Sinopoli saw his season end at the hands of the Mustangs in November of last year, the 22-year-old has had a one-track mind, focusing on the March CFL Evaluation Camp where he’ll demonstrate his considerable talents before coaches, scouts and evaluators from the CFL.

Sinopoli spent some of Canada’s colder February weeks in sunny Florida, training at Athletic Edge Sports where 2010 CFL first-overall draft pick Shomari Williams prepared for E-Camp last year.

The competitive atmosphere alone is worth the price of admission – several NCAA players are also training at AES in hopes of making the NFL – but the chance to work one-on-one with guest coach Ken Dorsey was priceless.

Dorsey, currently a quarterback with the Toronto Argonauts but most famous for his time at the University of Miami where he was twice named a finalist for the Heisman Trophy, spent three days a week working directly with Sinopoli on his footwork and ball release.

“That was great. Ken Dorsey is basically a legend,” Sinopoli said. “He’s a very, very knowledgeable guy. It was great to just have the opportunity to talk with him about how things work at the next level. And then working with him one-on-one was just awesome.”

For a player like Sinopoli, known just as well for his scrambling abilities as for his arm, footwork isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when you think of where he needs to improve.

But the human kinetics major is constantly striving to better himself, something Gee Gees head coach Jean-Philippe Asselin says made Sinopoli a pleasure to coach.

“I’ve coached a lot of great players, but unlike any of them he’s very open to trying new things,” Asselin said. “He’s not stuck in the things that he does. He has a very open mind.”

Maybe the biggest challenge Sinopoli faced at Ottawa was the man who preceded him as starting quarterback, Josh Sacobie.

Sacobie rewrote the Gee Gees record book over his five-year CIS career, leading the Gee Gees to the Yates Cup championship in 2006. As soon as Sinopoli enrolled at Ottawa in 2007, the comparisons began.

“Josh is such a great quarterback – it was inevitable that people would continue talking about what he did. And they should because he had a great career,” Sinopoli said.

But getting out from under that shadow in 2010, a year when Sinopoli broke many of Sacobie’s records and took home the Hec Crighton – something Sacobie never did – was undeniably important to defining Sinopoli as a football player.

“I think it was an important year for him. All along no one was really surprised with the success he had. But he wants to play at the next level and sometimes to do that you have to make a name for yourself,” Asselin said.

Playing at the next level is certainly the goal for Sinopoli and although he would hardly hesitate at returning to the Gee Gees for a fifth and final run at that elusive Ontario championship, the Peterborough-native has his sights set on playing in the CFL.

Sinopoli is often at his best when he’s improvising on the football field, creating plays out of practically nothing, a highly-coveted ability he demonstrated in the 2010 Yates Cup when he twice turned broken plays that looked like certain sacks into big gains and Gee Gees first downs.

But while his talents throwing and running the football are undeniable, there’s one more intangible that Sinopoli will always carry with him – thanks once again to his father Sam.

“The biggest thing for my dad was mental toughness. I couldn’t tell you how many times he preached that to me throughout my high school career and even in university,” Sinopoli said. “Being a quarterback, stuff isn’t always going to go your way. You’re going to throw interceptions. But you have to have that mental toughness to bounce back. That’s the biggest thing he taught me.”

Sinopoli will take that mental toughness into E-Camp where he hopes it will help navigate him through the sea of nay-sayers and critics that naturally surround any Canadian who dares to try to play quarterback professionally.

“I think his biggest weakness as a football player is being a Canadian quarterback,” Asselin joked. “I truly hope he gets an opportunity to get into a camp and show what he can do. All he needs is a chance to prove that he can perform at the next level.”

Despite the ringing endorsement from his coach, it’s no doubt that many CFL types will take one look at Sinopoli’s athletic six-foot-four frame and deceptive elusiveness and immediately peg him as a future receiver.

But while Sinopoli said he would be open to switching positions if it meant it was his only chance to play professional football, he’s not ready to give up taking the snaps just yet.

“If you’re a quarterback, you’re pretty much told from day one that if you have aspirations to go to the CFL as a quarterback you can forget about it. Start catching balls and running routes,” Sinopoli said. “There has to be someone along the way that changes that.

“I just need that chance. That’s all.”