Eric Glavic, second from right, isn't playing for the Huskies this season, but still attends every practice to stay engaged with the team. (Photo: John Packman)
Huskies star sits out season
Award-winning SMU quarterback Erik Glavic hoped to play for the Huskies in the 2008 finals, but a knee injury is keeping him on the bench the rest of the season
(0)Erik Glavic was four years old the last time a Saint Mary’s University football player won the HEC Crighton Trophy, an annual award given to the best Canadian university football player. Seventeen years later, the honour went to him. But the fast-running quarterback had to walk on stage with crutches to accept the trophy.
Glavic injured his knee in the Uteck Bowl, the semifinal game that determines which team moves on to the championship Vanier Cup. The SMU Huskies were playing Laval Rouge et Or.
In the first half, Glavic tried to fake a pass on a run play. He ran up the middle, but as he came up to another player, he made a hard cut to the right.
“When I cut, it kind of just went over top of itself,” Glavic says, pointing to the outside of his left knee. “You can just feel your knee’s not supposed to go that way.”
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Glavic stands on the field during practice with a brace on his left knee. (Photo: Kathleen Callahan)
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This is a highlight video posted by Huskies football showcasing Glavic's talent on the field. He wears jersey #10.
At half time he was told the injury wasn’t anything serious. He wasn’t sure if he should play the second half, but because of the magnitude of the game and his roaring adrenaline, he went back in.
Then it happened again.
“I was just like, ‘Take me out,’” he says.
Glavic had injured himself and he wasn’t sure when—or if— he’d be able to play again. His football future rested on a knee ligament.
The Huskies finished the Uteck Bowl without their star quarterback. They won the game but lost the Vanier Cup. Glavic says not being able to play in the championship was the worst part about his injury.
Glavic had torn his anterior cruciate ligament, an injury common in sports like football. He had major surgery to reconstruct his knee that left him bedridden for five days. When he was able to get up, he walked with crutches before graduating to a cane. He said the recovery progressed much quicker during this time than it is now.
“Every day you would see progress,” he says.
Glavic, a 22-year-old commerce student from Pickering, Ont., is in his third year at SMU. Standing tall at 6’6”, he still attends all the team’s practices, even though he’s not able to play. He’s good-looking, down-to-earth and friendly. He still wears sandals in November.
He tried returning in week three of the 2008 season, but strained his knee. It set his recovery back two or three months.
He had been hoping to play in the finals this season, but the outlook is bleak.
“Right now it’s not feeling too good,” he says, “So I probably won’t end up playing.”
He says he still deals with the fear he may not fully recover enough to play again.
“I’m kind of wondering, will I ever get better? I mean, just gotta keep training, keep working, or else it won’t. At least I can say I tried if it doesn’t.”
“For full recovery, it’s about 18 months,” says Huskies Head Coach Steve Sumarah. “You may be able to get back after six months, but the way Erik plays, the way he runs around, he needs a full recovery.”
Glavic’s not the only one in his family with the football gene. His brother Sasha plays for the Hamilton Tiger Cats in the Canadian Football League, and his brother Marko played quarterback for Lafayette College in Pennsylvania. He was the all-time leading passer in Lafayette history and the Patriot League leader in passing yards and total offence. He now plays in Europe.
Three star football players in the same family—imagine tossing a football around at one of their family reunions.
“My brother explained it,” Glavic says. “He said [our parents] probably drank a lot of milk.”
Glavic says he and his brothers signed up for football because hockey was too expensive. There was an advertisement in the paper to play football--$200 for registration, equipment included. Glavic said he liked going out with his brothers and playing.
“We would just always go out and play catch. It seemed like a little thing at the time, out on the street, over in the park, and anytime we really got together, [we were] always working on it without even noticing it,” says Glavic. “We started off as playing and eventually you grow into it and try to make something out of it.”
Another of Glavic’s most fierce skills on the field developed out of childhood play.
Playing tag taught Glavic his master scramble—his ability to run circles around his opponents.
“Playing tag, just running around, you get the stamina, people are chasing you and you learn how to get away from them,” he says.
But not your average game of freeze tag. Manhunt was his specialty.
“When you tag one person, then there’s more people after you, so you learn how to get away from all of them.”
Coach Sumarah draws the same comparison.
“He reminds me of somebody in Grade 2 or 3 playing tag that never gets caught,” he says. “And that’s how he plays the game, once he has the ball in his hand he just never wants to be tackled.”
Glavic is still eligible to play three more years of football at SMU, but he’s not sure he’ll be there that much longer.
“I’ll be back next year for sure, but this is also my CFL draft year so maybe I’ll get drafted and stick on the team,” he says. “But that’ll probably be later on, hopefully, if ever.”
Glavic put himself on the national radar when he won the HEC Crighton Trophy in 2007—just a week after his knee injury. When he won it, he said he was still feeling “pretty low” about his knee.
“But in some ways—more than some ways—it felt real nice,” he says. “Getting nationally recognized is a big thing, it doesn’t happen all the time.”
Despite the glory and recognition of the award, Glavic says he would still trade it for the chance to have been able to play in the Vanier Cup.
He’s looking forward to next season, hoping to get back into the feeling of playing football. He says being with the guys is what he misses most.
“Being in the huddle, even yelling at people, just the whole atmosphere,” he says. “I mean, just playing. Just having fun out there.”
His team misses him too.
“Leadership is his biggest strength,” says Sumarah. “He’s a natural-born leader, and when he’s out on the field, he plays with such an excitement and energy that we kind of miss that this year.”
On what his life would be like without playing football, he says he’d still find ways to involve it in his life somehow.
“I’m not planning on being one of those football superstars forever and ever, so I think I’d get on with my life.”
The SMU Huskies will play a semifinal game on Saturday at 1 p.m. against the St. Francis Xavier X-Men.
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