So Mark Korte if you were a doughnut, you would be a…

When prospects walked into the Ottawa REDBLACKS interview room during the National Scouting Combine presented by adidas, they were greeted by a box of donuts.

That’s right. A box of donuts.

Marcel Desjardins decided on a whim that he’d ask each prospect something simple during their interview session: what donut did they identify with and why?

“Everybody overthinks everything,” Desjardins laughed with James Cybulski and Davis Sanchez on The Waggle presented by Sport Clips, explaining why he asked the question. “It’s unbelievable. At the end of the day, we were going to get coffee before going to the interviews and just spur of the moment thing. We had two rooms going, we had an offensive room and a defensive room. (We said) let’s just get three totally different donuts and then we’ll just ask the players a question about it. In the moment, when we were in there, I just asked them which one do they identify with the most and why?”

There were three donuts the prospects could choose from. An Old Fashioned Plain, a Long John and a Canadian Maple Dip.

“A lot of guys said it was the old fashioned one because they were just down-to-Earth, get your work done kind,” Desjardins explained. “Because a lot of guys were offensive linemen that we were interviewing, too.”


Episode 102: Marcel on reloading the REDBLACKS

Ottawa REDBLACKS general manager Marcel Desjardins drops by to talk Combine and some of the big off-season shake-ups in the capital. James and Davis debate what it’ll take in 2018 to get Ottawa back to another Grey Cup.


“This was the reason for doing this, to see how they thought in the spur of the moment but secondly just to put them in a good frame of mind for that whole evening,” he continued. “Lighten the mood a little bit. The one offensive lineman said, ‘I identify with the Canadian maple because it’s well rounded and there’s no holes in it.”

And when asked what donut Desjardins would be?

“I would say I’m probably just the plain Jane,” he said. “I go about my business, I’m not worried about the personality part of it. I just like to do my work, being the base of what other donuts might want to aspire to be.”

“I would probably fail this test, I have no idea,” laughed Sanchez. “All this long John talk has made me hungry though!”

And Cybulski? He’d go very Canadian.

“I guess I have to go maple because I tend to lean towards my nationalism as a guy who grew up in Ottawa. I kind of wave the flag a lot and I’m sweet. I think I’d probably just go with the maple based on the fact that, it’s Stanley Cup playoff time and I will probably cheer for a Canadian team amongst all the teams in the Stanley Cup playoffs.”

James and Davis chatted with prospect Mark Chapman, a receiver from Central Michigan, after the combine in an episode of The Waggle and he told them which donut he chose when the REDBLACKS asked him.

“I had no idea how to answer that at all. If you know how to answer that, go ahead and let me know,” he laughed. “My answer was a chocolate glazed donut with some sprinkles because I have a sprinkle of personality to go with it.”

I talked to Mark Korte, an offensive lineman from the University of Alberta, after the one-on-one drills and he told me about the REDBLACKS interview tactic as well.

“One team, they had a box of donuts, and they said, ‘what donut are you?'” he said. “I picked the Old Fashioned Plain from Tim Hortons. It was a fun question. We all had a good laugh over it.”

Me? I would definitely be a Vanilla Dip with sprinkles (really colourful ones) because my personality is really loud and fun just like the sprinkles!

What donut would you be?