Kevin Sousa/CFL.ca
Through a life spent playing football, Larry Dean has done a lot of things on the artificial turf of a field house. This past Friday marked the first time he learned about content production.
As a part of the CFL Player Mentorship Program, Dean was one of six players that spent the week in Toronto at CFL HQ, learning about the business side of the league he’s spent the last five seasons in.
Throughout the week he spent in Toronto, Dean showed an active curiosity about everything he was exposed to. That curiosity spanned presentations from the league’s football operations department, touring TSN and meeting with the people that put CFL on TSN broadcast together, or as we saw at the CFL Invitational Combine at the University of Waterloo on Friday, how an event like that is covered on the league’s site.
Seeing a section of the sidelines littered with laptops, Dean made his way over to CFL.ca’s hastily put together setup. Kristina Costabile, the site’s manager of web and digital content, took Dean through the nitty gritty of the data collection of the combine and how it ends up on the front of the site. She showed him live data on the site’s audience that morning and detailed what would run on the site through the day.
This is, admittedly, niche stuff that can cause an outsiders’ eyes to glaze over fairly quickly. Dean stayed engaged, asked questions and hung out until some of his combine duties pulled him away.
RELATED
» Market Ready: The 2023 CFL Free Agent Tracker
» A team-by-team look at Free Agency
» Six players selected for 2023 CFL Player Mentorship Program
» Steinberg’s MMQB: Three exciting 2023 duos
» 12 players advance from Invitational Combine
(From left) Larry Dean, Jeshrun Antwi, Patrick Neufeld, Kamar Jorden, Shaq Evans and Anthony Federico made up the 2023 class of mentorship program participants (Kevin Sousa/CFL.ca)
Dean, along with Jeshrun Antwi, Shaq Evans, Anthony Federico, Kamar Jorden and Patrick Neufeld made up the 2023 edition of the Mentorship Program. A joint venture with the CFL Players’ Association, the program allows players to gain a deeper understanding of the business priorities of the CFL and its various departments, while building skills to one day transition away from the field into their chosen career paths.
“I’ve been on information overload,” Dean said of his experience with the program.
“To have the access and the networking ability to tap in with people from TSN and things of that nature, it’s been amazing.”
As Kamar Jorden has navigated a challenging off-season that has the talented receiver still an unsigned free agent, the program came along at a perfect time.
The seven-year CFL vet has spent his entire career with the Calgary Stampeders. He said he wasn’t blindsided by the direction that the team went in this winter but feels he has a lot to offer a team. While he patiently waits for that opportunity, he was happy to get to pour his attention into the inner-workings of the league he plays in and to help out at Friday’s Invitational Combine.
“It was a gratifying experience, honestly,” he said.
“It was good to see some of the numbers and stuff like that and to see the things that the league is doing to try to grow the league and get it out to more fans across Canada and into the United States. I met a lot of people, had a lot of contacts, just made sure I learned something from this. I thought it was a good experience for me, transitioning to life after football — whenever that may be, I hope it’s not now — whenever that is I feel like I have some good knowledge from this week.”
Jorden helped the CFL Invitational Combine run smoothly on March 3, concluding the week-long mentorship program (Kevin Sousa/CFL.ca)
Jorden studied film editing in school and enjoyed the exposure to TSN and the social media and content side of his time in the CFL office. What exactly life after football will look like for him is still up in the air for him.
“I think coming here has given me a little more clarity about some of the things (answering) what can I do, right?” he said.
“I’m seeing people and hearing their stories. Even coming (to the combine) and talking to the coaches, talking to the scouts, how they got in position to get these jobs and what I could do to get in situations like that. It’s giving me a little more clarity and a little more actionable plans that I could set forth to put myself in that position to get a job like this.”
Day 2 of @CFL x @CFLPA mentorship was awesome. Super impressive and informative for me on the digital, content, and partnership side of things. Great people! Looking forward to checking out @TSN_Sports today.
— Paddy Neufeld (@paddyneufeld) March 2, 2023
Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ offensive lineman Patrick Neufeld also said he got a lot out of the week of meetings.
“I’ve always wanted to be involved with football in some way when I’m done playing but this further cements it, for sure,” the 11-year CFL vet said.
“I’d always envisioned myself into coaching but especially being at this combine and then going through what the league does on the player personnel side of things, it’s definitely changed my thoughts on that and being more involved in that.”
A Regina native that’s spent his football life on the prairies, a Canadian draft coordinator role, or blending that into a coaching role with a team is appealing to him.
Overall, Neufeld said that getting into the league office and learning about how things work there helped remove what felt like a barrier between him and the league he’s a part of.
“Everyone was super open, really collaborative. They let us ask questions freely and encouraged discussion, which was really cool,” he said.
