Every game, don\u2019t miss Barney Shynkaruk\u2019s Behind the Facemask \u2014 a closer look at your favourite Saskatchewan Roughriders. This week: Two-time Grey Cup champion Jonathan Edouard .<\/p>\n
Every game, don\u2019t miss Barney Shynkaruk\u2019s Behind the Facemask \u2014 a closer look at your favourite Saskatchewan Roughriders.<\/p>\n
This week: Two-time Grey Cup champion Jonathan Edouard.<\/p>\n
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Barney Shynkaruk:
\nAll right, Behind the Facemask this week with Jonathan Edouard, a two-time Grey Cup champion.<\/p>\n
People know you\u2019re from Orlando, so let\u2019s start there.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s your favourite theme park in the area?<\/p>\n
Jonathan Edouard:
\nUniversal.<\/p>\n
Barney:
\nWhy?<\/p>\n
Jonathan:
\nI worked there. I rode all the rides. I love it.<\/p>\n
Take me back to Universal.<\/p>\n
Barney:
\nSo maybe down the road, is that your retirement gig?<\/p>\n
Jonathan:
\nOh no. I just love Universal.<\/p>\n
I love riding the rides. I wouldn’t work there again.<\/p>\n
Barney:
\nLet\u2019s go back to your high school days, and maybe even before that.<\/p>\n
What are your first memories of playing football?<\/p>\n
Jonathan:
\nI played Pop Warner.<\/p>\n
My first memory is running out of my shoes to score touchdowns.<\/p>\n
I was a running back and played defensive end, so I had some sacks too.<\/p>\n
Barney:
\nWhat did you play in high school?<\/p>\n
Jonathan:
\nIn high school, I played receiver and defensive back.<\/p>\n
Barney:
\nWere you a better defensive back or receiver back then?<\/p>\n
Jonathan:
\nI was a better DB.<\/p>\n
You know the joke \u2014 they say you can’t catch, so they put you on the defensive side.<\/p>\n
Barney:
\nYour coaches are in the back here.<\/p>\n
You come from a big family. Eight siblings?<\/p>\n
Jonathan:
\nEight siblings, yeah.<\/p>\n
Barney:
\nAre they all athletic? Take us through the family.<\/p>\n
Jonathan:
\nThey actually are.<\/p>\n
There are five boys, and all four of my brothers played football.<\/p>\n
My oldest brother played football at Bishop Moore. My second-oldest brother also played, and they both went to Charleston Southern University to play football.<\/p>\n
My third-oldest brother went to Beloit College.<\/p>\n
And then my youngest brother was a high school star from about 13 to 15, but he actually didn’t want to play after high school.<\/p>\n
Barney:
\nWhat about the ladies? What about your sisters?<\/p>\n
Jonathan:
\nMy sisters were involved in track for a little bit, but they didn’t have as much grit for the game as we did, I’d say.<\/p>\n
Barney:
\nLet’s talk about your journey to Canada.<\/p>\n
You played college football in the States, and I know you’ve told us this story before, but take me through it.<\/p>\n
Was it a chance to maybe play in the CFL that brought you to Carleton?<\/p>\n
Jonathan:
\nYes, hands down. One hundred percent.<\/p>\n
It was a chance that I didn’t know could eventually allow me to become a Canadian national, but I did want to catch the CFL’s eye.<\/p>\n
While I was at Henderson State, I started to get a little bit better. I started training with Ryan Clark, and I really wanted to pursue the NFL.<\/p>\n
I told my coach about it, and he said, “We’re at a Division II school. You may want to pursue somewhere else.”<\/p>\n
Ryan Clark talked about possibly getting me into LSU, and I had opportunities to walk on at a couple of other schools too.<\/p>\n
But Don Jarrett told me about U SPORTS and Canadian university football.<\/p>\n
The day I met Steve Samara was the day I made up my mind that this was the best decision for me.<\/p>\n
Barney:
\nYou get to Ottawa, you get to Carleton, and then you have a border issue.<\/p>\n
Take me through that.<\/p>\n
Jonathan:
\nI had no idea what I was doing.<\/p>\n
I thought the North American Free Trade Agreement was still a thing and that I just needed my birth certificate and ID, get my passport, and I’d be good to go.<\/p>\n
I thought, “I’m a student. I’m going to get another degree and play football.”<\/p>\n
But it was a much bigger process than that.<\/p>\n
I needed a visa.<\/p>\n
Carleton sent me my visa information, but I had no clue where it was or how to access it.<\/p>\n
So when I showed up at the border, the agent could tell I had no idea what I was doing.<\/p>\n
I told him I was excited to come to Canada, get another degree and play football.<\/p>\n
He basically said, “You don’t know what you’re doing.”<\/p>\n
He gave me a one-year visa instead of a four-year visa.<\/p>\n
I ended up being in the country for 18 months when I was only supposed to be there for 12.<\/p>\n
So I was six months past my visa date, and they actually gave me a letter of departure.<\/p>\n
Barney:
\nSo were you just kind of in limbo for a year?<\/p>\n
Jonathan:
\nYes.<\/p>\n
I think adversity makes people a lot stronger.<\/p>\n
It was one of those turning points in my life where I had to ask myself, “Do I give up, or is that not who I am?”<\/p>\n
During the season, I had to get a new passport, and I ended up having to go to my brother’s house in Milwaukee because that was the closest place.<\/p>\n
Barney:
\nDo you get the heebie-jeebies when you’re at the border even to this day?<\/p>\n
Jonathan:
\nThey know me now.<\/p>\n
They know me specifically, and they’re always like, “Ah, we love you, man.”<\/p>\n
I appreciate them.<\/p>\n
Barney:
\nYour parents are from Haiti?<\/p>\n
Jonathan:
\nYes.<\/p>\n
Barney:
\nThey must have some wild stories.<\/p>\n
Jonathan:
\nOh, definitely.<\/p>\n
Barney:
\nIs there one that stands out?<\/p>\n
Jonathan:
\nI’d say the one that stands out to me the most is how hard my dad worked to come to America.<\/p>\n
My mom took all the tests she needed to take to come to America.<\/p>\n
They knew each other in Haiti, but they met each other again in America.<\/p>\n
It’s one of those stories where I’m always thankful that they had us.<\/p>\n
Barney:
\nWhat did Mom and Dad do?<\/p>\n
Because eight kids aren’t cheap.<\/p>\n
Jonathan:
\nMy dad was a taxi driver for the first 13 years of my life.<\/p>\n
There were lots of theme parks and lots of businesses around us.<\/p>\n
My mom started going to school at Seminole State and eventually became a nurse.<\/p>\n
Now she’s an RN.<\/p>\n
Barney:
\nWhat’s your favourite NFL team?<\/p>\n
Jonathan:
\nThey didn’t pick me, so I don’t have one.<\/p>\n
Barney:
\nYou don’t have one?<\/p>\n
Who was the player you looked up to and tried to emulate?<\/p>\n
Jonathan:
\nThere are three of them.<\/p>\n
Ryan Clark, Ed Reed and Sean Taylor.<\/p>\n
Barney:
\nReally?<\/p>\n
Jonathan:
\nYeah.<\/p>\n
And Ryan Clark is a great friend of mine.<\/p>\n
Barney:
\nWhen’s the last time you ran a 40-yard dash, and what was the time?<\/p>\n
Jonathan:
\nThe last time I ran a 40 was in 2025, around February, with Justin Walker.<\/p>\n
I ran a 4.27.<\/p>\n
I ran it seven times, though.<\/p>\n
My fastest was a 4.27, and my slowest was a 4.32.<\/p>\n
Barney:
\nIf we had a time machine and you could go back to any point in your career, when do you think you could run your fastest 40?<\/p>\n
How old were you?<\/p>\n
Jonathan:
\nHonestly, 27 to now.<\/p>\n
I’m going 27 to now.<\/p>\n
I don’t know too many people faster than me in life.<\/p>\n
Barney:
\nAll right, there we go.<\/p>\n
Jonathan Edouard, thank you so much for doing this.<\/p>\n
That was a lot of fun.<\/p>\n
Jonathan:
\nAppreciate you guys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every game, don\u2019t miss Barney Shynkaruk\u2019s Behind the Facemask \u2014 a closer look at your favourite Saskatchewan Roughriders.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":850220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,295737,82],"class_list":["post-850219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-saskatchewan-roughridersriders","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=850219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/850220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=850219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=850219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=850219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}