34 — Wednesday, August 27, 1997 — North Shore News

north shore news

& SPORTS
Travels with Sean Millington

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JUST i in case you were
wondering, when Sean

Millington rushed for a .

team record 212 yards
a couple of weeks back
on the nylon carpet at
_ Taylor, Field in Regina,
he didn’t really threat-
en Ron Stewart’s 37- -

Sear old CEL record:

- Indeed, in this era of fly- .
ing footballs (should the
ve game really be called throw: :
ball?) it’s’ Hkely Stewart’s 287
” yards for, Ottawa in’a 1960
romp over the Montreal .
Alouettes will last forever. Or -
for as long as the CFL lasts,
whichever comes first.’
“3° However, what has
amazed many oldtime B.C. .
: Lions fans is to learn that the

longed; not to the slightly ”

amortal Willic Fleming, but _

"to the: much lesser-known ~
“Keyvan Jenkins and his 206 -
yards in a'1985 game‘at

. The best. Willie ¢ ever

Hong! 's career matk

17, games.

discounted, most coaches of

the day, believed in the old
oy “Woody Hayes’ maxim: when
-.a balf is thrown into the air,

three things can happen and

two of them are bad.
At-more than 6-foot-3

and 230 pounds, Millington

is about a foot taller than

Stewart, who had the same

sort’of build buc more open-

field speed.A pocket :

- Hercules, sc to speak. The

standing order from opposing

-~ coaches of the time was:

“Tackle him low ... around
the neck!”
So, a réporter wanted to

know, after the euphoria of

26 carries and a club single
game rushing record, how
id he feel the following. -

orning as he counted up

; -. the coritusions?
it he’s unlikely to,

“Sore. All over. Legs,
knecs, shins. Just about
everywhere. And not just the
following day. It took almost
a week to recover. It wasn’t

Stewart’s and Fleming’s —

when teams played back-to-
back Saturday-Monday
games. Rushing records were
set on Saturdays; fumble
records on Mondays.

Even without the hazard
of rwo games in 48 hours,
Millington is quite aware of
the toll his profession takes
on the human body, which
was designed without footbail
being taken into the scheme
of things, At 29 and in his
seventh pro season, he’s a
supremely devout man who
merely says: “God will tell me
when it’s time to leave.”

It was SFU head coach Al
Beaton who told him to get
on a weight program when
he joined the Clansmen from
Carson Graham. He had
reached his current neight
but weighed only 190. Only?
Well, 190 was okay for long
and high j jumping, his high
school track and field special-
ties, But not for a collision

ition like fullback in a col-

ision game.

He graduated not only
with an economics degree,

_ but with 20 pounds more

muscle than when he
entered. The weight program
continues to this day where,
in the argot of the lifting
trade, he squats 500 pounds
and presses 350. How many

; we Your agent forgot to

: But in asking about his

family background, the
_ thought did occur that fine

careers quite often are the
products of happy accidents.
While he started out life in
North Van, Sean became an.

inadvertent international trav- |

eller. His mother is a physi-
cian and his father a profes-
sor. A travelling professor.

The fullback-to-be spent
many of his growing up years
in Barbados, Tamaica an
Germany. Siad his dad decid-
ed to cainp permanently in
Jamaica, his son may have
become a star cricketer. Or
had he stayed in Germany,
the kid might now be a goal-
keeper or centreback for
Borussia Dortmund. Either
way, he’d be making more
money than the Lions can
afford these days.

He was 11 when the fami-
ly got back to North Van.

And he was such a big kid for

his age when he enrolled at
Carson Graham, the football
coach, Earl Henderson,
found a place for him on the
team — at left guard. While
he’s no Donovan Bailey in
the sprint league, Sean ‘felt he
should be in the backfield.

Tt took a couple of years
of bugging the coach, who
finally gave him a shot at full-
back. He rushed for 100° ~
yards his first time out. .
Consequently, he’s been a
fullback ever since. Now
here’s a question. Had the
coach not given in, and had
he finished out his high

school carecr as a 190-pound |” -
-guard, would SFU have a
recruited him? Or woutd his. -

football career have ended
right there?

Fate is, indeed, the
hunter.

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