Jun
Als’ Bédard admits he was a problem child, until football came into his life
Courtesy Montreal Gazette:
Late at night, following a busy day of training camp practices and meetings, when he’s in his room and alone with his thoughts, Martin Bédard frequently thinks of his mother, Sylvie.
How can he not? Her initials are tattooed onto his ribs. He keeps pictures of her close at hand, and it was she who left him with a profound message, as only a mother can do.
“When we want, we can, she used to say to me,” Bédard remembered. “You just need to have the will to achieve it.”
Bédard, born in Quebec but raised mostly in Laval, became the first francophone to join the University of Connecticut Huskies in 2006, recruited after attending a Ron Diaz pro camp and offered a full scholarship. He did so, although his English wasn’t strong at the time.
And he played his first game in August that year, against Rhode Island, less than 24 hours after learning his mother, only 47 at the time, died suddenly of leukemia.
He was presented the game ball by head coach Randy Edsall, who received the call and had to break the news to Bédard at 12:30 a.m. He also gave Bédard the opportunity to go home, but the coach was told that wouldn’t occur until after the game.
“I didn’t want to let the team down,” Bédard said. “But the biggest reason was that she would have wanted me to play, obviously.
“I remember everything about the game, although it was really hard to play and I had a weird feeling.”
“I was happy on one side, since it was my first NCAA game and I realized my dream, Bédard said. “But at the same time it was the saddest time, knowing I wouldn’t see my mother anymore. It was the weirdest thing.
“I almost never knew her in a very healthy state,” he added. “She always had digestive problems, and one problem always seemed to create another. It had a snowball effect.”
Selected in the second round (14th overall) by the Alouettes in this year’s draft, the 6-foot-3, 239-pounder has aspirations of cracking Montreal’s roster as its long snapper, primarily, although he played tight end in college and, eventually, hopes to be the team’s starting fullback.
Bédard has enjoyed a good camp and will dress tomorrow, when the Als open their exhibition schedule in Toronto.
It was Marc Santerre, his head coach at CEGEP Vieux-Montréal, who would drive Bédard to Quebec City on weekends to visit his ailing mother. Santerre, a native of the provincial capital, also had a sick mother at the time and figured he could be a good sounding board during the three-hour trip.
“For all of us, our mothers are important. And he was
really close to her,” said Santerre, now the head coach at Université de Montréal.
“I remember him being sad about it, keeping a lot of his feelings inside. But when they came out, they came out (emotionally) like a storm.”
It also was Santerre who convinced Bédard to practise his long-snapping when the teen wanted to depart workouts at their conclusion.
Santerre knew that mastering the discipline could provide Bédard with one more avenue to professional football. Bédard was named to the CEGEP all-star team. An accomplished long-snapper, he was named the CEGEP specialist of the year one season.
“He’s an amazing long-snapper,” Santerre said. “In four years I haven’t seen him miss a snap. He’s totally dedicated. He was our captain and he’s intense. He’s a tough guy. He went to Connecticut as a tight end, although nobody thought he was big enough to be a Division I tight end.”
“I’ve always had levels of dreams,” said Bédard, 25. “The first was to become an NCAA player.”
Bédard could read and understand some English when he joined the Huskies, although writing and speaking were another matter. He said he was in survival mode early on, seeking help from his teammates, along with his girlfriend, a New Jersey native. Although he enrolled as a French major, Bédard eventually switched to psychology and is only four classes from his degree.
“I struggled in English and tried to hide so no one would talk to me,” he said. “It was
really hard, but I decided to go for the English aspect. I didn’t get the best grades, because I almost couldn’t speak or communicate with my teachers. But looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made.”
Bédard’s parents divorced when he was only 2. He spent the first 10 years of his life with his mother, but was a problem child, he admitted.
His mother’s health beginning to deteriorate, she decided to send her son to Laval to be with his father. It was there Bédard first started playing football.
“I wasn’t the nicest child,” he said sheepishly. “I wasn’t bad, I just didn’t listen. I was a typical kid, but just maybe a little worse. Football helped me be more disciplined and helped me to become a better person.”
The Als were his idols while growing up. Vieux-Montréal practised at Olympic Stadium, as do the Als during the regular season, so Bédard could watch practice or occasionally mingle with the pros.
He dreamed of playing for the Als, but the realization didn’t hit until he arrived for rookie camp in early June.
“At that very moment of the draft, I couldn’t believe it, although I saw my name and people were calling to congratulate me,” he said.
