TMI: Is anyone more positive than James Franklin?

James Franklin has to be one of the most positive people I have ever met.

First of all, I really don’t think the Argos QB ever stops smiling. Seriously. Next time you’re at BMO Field (and I highly recommend you head out there for a game) take a look at Franklin on the sidelines. I can almost guarantee he’ll be smiling or trying to make someone else smile.

Second of all, he took a terrible situation – separating his shoulder in college when he was at the top of his game – and turned it into a lesson to learn from.

I had a chance to catch up with the pivot at York University during training camp a few weeks ago. At that point, he was fighting for the No. 2 spot behind Ricky Ray. Now, he’s about to take over the Argonauts offence from Ray as he takes time to recover from an injury sustained this past weekend.

Here’s the chat I had with Franklin helping you get to know the new leader of the Argonauts offence for the time being in this edition of TMI!

Kristina Costabile: Tell me something that fans may not know about you?

James Franklin: I like to hunt. I really enjoy that a lot.

KC: When did you start getting into that?

JF: Maybe three and a half, four years ago. My father-in-law got me into it and I’m addicted. I love animals and I was like, ‘I couldn’t kill a deer.’ I did find out that deer, on average, live between seven and eight and half years, somewhere around there, but they end up only living that long because they usually starve to death because their teeth get rotten.

The hunting that I’ve enjoyed doing, I definitely like to eat the meat like deer, pig hunting and some of the animals that are a little bit of a nuisance, like coyotes and sometimes a wild boar. I’m okay with that. I don’t know if I could go bear hunting or wolf hunting. It would be cool but I’d just feel bad not using the meat.

KC: Are you going to be hunting around Toronto since you just moved here recently?

JF: Yes ma’am. My father-in-law said that he’d come if I got to go sheep hunting or mountain goat hunting. He said that he would come up and help me because you need to go with somebody because you have to have a spotter. I’m pretty excited. So hopefully in the future I’ll get to do that.

KC: What’s on your pre-game playlist?

JF: It’s kind of changed. All the way up until maybe four months ago I just like, not slow music so to speak, but just calming music, pop music. I don’t necessarily get psyched up. From a quarterback stand point, in my head I just like to be calm and so I’ll listen to love songs, I’ll listen to whatever. But then about four months ago, this was a huge surprise for me. I don’t like rap music, I like the beats but most of it’s pretty derogatory and a lot of cursing. Then I was looking for some music one day, and I’ll do it for hours and hours to try and find one or two good songs because it’s hard to find clean songs now because every song has to some kind of curse word in it. And then I found this rapper named NF, his name is Nathan Foster. I know that he is signed by a Christian label so I don’t know if he’s classified as a Christian rapper but what I like about him that’s different than most is he talks about, in my opinion, real topics.

I like the beat and I like how it sounds. A lot of people think it’s Eminem but he doesn’t cuss in any of his songs, he’s really respectful. He just talks about some of the things that he’s been through. For the first time ever, I downloaded an whole album. Which is huge for me because I only download songs because I don’t like all the songs so I was really surprised. Every time I’ve worked out since then that’s the only thing I listen to. That’s probably going to be my playlist this year.

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

JF: No ma’am. I just like to be positive and loose and I like to have fun. I do like to go out before and just throw but if not, it’s not a big deal. I don’t really have anything specific.

KC: What’s your favourite football memory?

JF: Well this is a little bit different, I don’t know if I’d say my favourite, but one of my most thankful times. I had a lot of injuries in college and then my latest one was in my senior year, my last year in university. Previously I was supposed to be this super great player and I got hurt and then nothing and we were starting off 6-0 and I believe I was No. 1 in the country for total yards and touchdowns and then a guy took a little bit of a late hit on me and separated my shoulder. It was frustrating because I was finally accomplishing things that I wanted to but I was really thankful for that because it was a good reminder for me that it’s a little bit more important than football because it seemed like for the next 10 hours I was really upset and it seemed like, not necessarily that life was over, but it felt like it. Just because everything that I had worked for (was done). They were saying that I was going to be out for the season. But for me it was a good reminder that just because I can’t play football doesn’t mean that I should behave any differently. And it was because of that that I really did a better job of (staying positive). Now after we lose, I’m still really positive. I’m upset that we’ve lost but I don’t have to show everyone that I’m upset. Just like any other job, if you don’t get a sale as a salesman, or you lose a client, whatever it is, could you imagine if they sat around and pouted? I was really thankful for that because I got injured one year, then the next year and then finally my third year I was like, ‘this is going to be it!’ Then it really stuck with me that I’ve been through this before and I need to make sure to not make football seem like it’s the say all, end all.

KC: If you were not playing football, what would you be doing?

JF: Motivational Speaking. I really enjoy it. My dad is a motivational speaker so I started young as far as talking in front of people at congregation, the leading singer of prayers. I can’t sing but just getting up there and getting used to it. Again, understanding it’s not about necessarily how good it sounds but just where your heart is at. But I really do enjoy talking in front of people. I learned that from my dad who’s really good with people and crowds and I really enjoyed that.

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

JF: I’d say Chris Van Zeyl. For one, he’s easily one of my favourite people on the team already. He’s also a hunter. Our personalities go together pretty good. I call him, it’s very corny, but every time I see him I say, ‘it ain’t easy being vee-sey!’ I enjoy hanging out with him already. I’d probably pick him, no offence to anybody else!

KC: If you could have any superpower, what would it be and why?

JF: Well I know when I was little I used to say invisibility but *makes buzzer noise*. I’d say maybe to be able to…. No.. I’m just trying to think practical here. I’d say flying. Worst case scenario if I fall off (something) or a plane’s going down, or for some reason I fall off a cliff, I’d be fine (laughs). I’ve always liked flying and I’ve always liked speed.

KC: What are you binge watching right now?

JF: Well, my wife and I like to watch shows together. Since it’s training camp and we haven’t been able to watch any together we have, what seems like 200, to catch up on. We do enjoy The Mentalist, The Negotiator.

KC: If you could travel anywhere in the entire world, where would it be and why?

JF: Probably somewhere tropical. Anywhere with Kaylee, my wife, and daughter would be pretty good. We’ve talked about wanting to go to Thailand or somewhere in Europe. Just somewhere we haven’t been. For us, I know this isn’t Thailand or somewhere tropical, but coming to Toronto (was nice), or even in Edmonton because we were there together. We got to experience a lot.