OTTAWA — There is no way former Gee-Gees football defensive back Delroy Clarke could leave a uOttawa degree on the table following his rookie season in the Canadian Football League.
“If I didn’t finish I think my parents would actually kill me,” smiled Clarke, who earned a Social Sciences degree in Criminology and Sociology after passing five second-semester courses, which began mere weeks after his 2008 season ended as a Toronto Argonauts cornerback.
“Since I am not a quitter, I couldn’t just not come back and finish.”
A former national-level youth soccer player in his native Jamaica, the six-foot Clarke, who spent his high school years in Whitby, Ont., self-taught himself football rules by watching NFL games as a child.
In 16 regular season games with the Gee-Gees from 2005-07 Clarke had 40 career tackles and five interceptions. The 2008 season was just his seventh playing football.
Sport, not school, kept his attention.
“I was not the model student,” Clarke, 26, said. “I spent more time playing in soccer tournaments and travelling than I did in school.”
After starting one game and appearing in nine for Toronto following his fourth-round selection in the CFL draft, Clarke gained more than a degree in his return to Ottawa.
He wedged four-day weeks in the gym and three-day weeks on the track into the gaps between scholastic assignments to enter his second CFL training camp a sleek 190 pounds. Clarke said proudly Argonauts veterans are due to report June 6.
He leaves Ottawa May 29 with paper in hand and perspective in mind.
“If it doesn’t work out, it’s because someone is better than me” said Clarke. “It won’t be because I didn’t do enough to make it.”
With files from uOttawa Sports Information