TMI: Don’t touch Bryan Burnham’s gloves

Don’t touch Bryan Burnham’s gloves. Stay far, far away from what he calls his most prized possession.

Gloves, after all, are a receiver’s best friend and what’s a pass-catcher without his hands?

Burnham is very particular about making sure he’s the only one that touches his pair before a game and that superstition is definitely working. The fifth-year BC Lion hit the 1000-yard mark in both of the last two seasons (1,392 in 2016 and 1,202 in 2017) and caught seven TD passes last year alone.

The 28-year-old couldn’t choose just one teammate to be stranded on a deserted island with and he really likes to cook.

Get to know more about Burnham in this edition of TMI!

Kristina Costabile: What is something that fans would be surprised to know about you?

Bryan Burnham: I like to cook a lot. Me and my wife always cook together or one night she’ll cook and one night I’ll cook. We’re both really into The Food Network and watching all of those cooking competition shows. Growing up I kind of wanted to be a chef after I was done playing football.

KC: Do you still want to be a chef when you’re done football?

BB: I don’t think I’d want to go that route but I would like to learn more about it. Take cooking classes, learn a little bit more about the culinary arts and everything. I don’t think I’d want to be a chef. It’s a lot of hard work.

KC: What’s your favourite thing to cook?

BB: The thing I cook the most is fried rice. It was just kind of easy in college, throwing some stuff together in a pot or in a skillet and just frying up some rice. After I met my wife, my wife is actually half Chinese and her dad is Chinese and just spending a lot of time with them, I learned a lot more about it. I started making a little more authentic Chinese fried rice. That’s the thing I cook the most and the thing I’m best at.

KC: What do you like to do in your free time?

BB: Pretty much when I’m not playing football me and my wife are together all day, watching movies, watching TV. We have a dog, we take the dog out, play with the dog. I like to play video games and explore Vancouver. That’s pretty much what we get up to when I’m not playing football.

KC: Have you done any hiking around Vancouver?

BB: We got into hiking a little bit more last year and found some decent spots. It’s kind of hard during the season because I don’t necessarily want to go walk for an hour after a game but we find time.

KC: Other than watching The Food Network, what are you binge watching?

BB: It’s a lot of cooking stuff. Right now I’m not binge watching anything because me and my wife like to watch stuff together so if we’re not together then we can’t watch it. But when we are together, we’ve been binge watching The Blacklist. We’re pretty into that. We like it.

KC: What cooking shows do you like to watch?

BB: MasterChef Junior. I like how amazing some of these kids are at cooking and they’re only like eight years old.

KC: What’s on your pre-game playlist?

BB: There’s a lot of stuff on my pre-game playlist. There’s some Eminem, J. Cole and then there’s some ACDC on there, some Scorpion. I’m into a lot of different music.

KC: Do you have any pre-game superstitions or routines?

BB: I don’t really think so. I used to be superstitious about little things about my socks, about the way I put my pads and my pants. I’ve kind of gotten over that the past few years. I’ll say my gloves. My gloves are the one thing I’m superstitious about because that’s what I used to do what I do up here. I’m really superstitious about people touching them. I don’t want anyone touching them. I don’t want them touching the ground. They’re like my prized possession.

KC: What’s your favourite football memory?

BB: There’s been quite a few good memories. Just in the last few years up here in BC but definitely the one I’ll remember for the rest of my life is senior year in high school (Moorestown high school). We went undefeated and won the State Championship and that was a lot of fun. Those are the guys that I grew up with and started playing football with and the last thing we did all together was go out undefeated and win the State Championship.

KC: If you could have a superpower, what would it be?

BB: I would say probably flying. It would be pretty cool to fly.

KC: If you could be stranded on a deserted island with any of your teammates, who would it be and why?

BB: I would say Manny Arceneaux because it’s Manny. He’s a resourceful guy and he’d be able to survive pretty well so that would be a good one to have. I’ll take Jonathon Jennings and Travis Lulay. They’re the brains of the operation so I think they’d know what to do. And then I’d take T.J. Lee. He’s just a good guy to be around. He makes some situations fun and when people are down, even in practice when people are upset, T.J.’s always composed. He always keeps his composure, always with a smile on his face. That would just be a good person to have around.