While it may not make up for a heartbreaking Yates Cup loss only two weeks ago, it sure can soften the blow for Canada's most outstanding interuniversity player and uOttawa Gee-Gee Brad Sinopoli. Thursday evening, Sinopoli was awarded the Hec Crighton award as part of the Vanier Cup celebrations this weekend in Quebec City, Que. Other nominees to the Hec Crighton were University of Saskatchewan Huskies quarterback Laurence Nixon, Saint Mary's Huskies receiver and kick returner Jahmeek Taylor and Université de Sherbrooke Vert & Or receiver Simon Charbonneau Campeau.
The award should perhaps come as no surprise considering Brad finished the regular season as the OUA and CIS leader with 301 attempts, 184 completions, 2756 passing yards and 22 touchdowns. In addition, having already been named the OUA MVP, he also broke four Gee-Gees all-time records in the process for most attempts, completions, passing yards and touchdowns in a season.
Still, even more impressive is his willingness to keep learning and his desire to improve no matter how good they might say he is. Brad is as humble as they come, and will always be the first to credit his teammates before himself. When asked about his OUA MVP award earlier this month, Sinopoli was at once honored and humbled: "It's cool, but obviously I couldn't be in this position without the receivers and everyone else in the line up doing their job. Football is not an individual sport; I mean you do your individual jobs, but you come together as a team. I can't do my job without them doing theirs."
Head coach Jean-Philippe Asselin credits Brad as being a very coachable player who is always looking to improve his game: "It's pretty special to have a great athlete like he is. Probably one the best quarterbacks to play here [uOttawa], and still so passionate about learning. He's very open-minded to new things that our coaching staff will bring to him, and he just keeps getting better. I think he deserves it, and I am very happy for him."
When asked what it means for the uOttawa Gee-Gees football program to have major award winners, Asselin believes it is testament to the program's success: "It's great to get some recognition. I think every time you have a major award winner you have proven that you've been doing something right either in recruiting or coaching. And so this is great for our program, our coaches and everyone else that has put a lot of time and effort into it."
Brad is only the fourth Gee-Gee to ever win the Hec Crighton award, and the first since fellow quarterback Phil Cote won the award in 1999. Aside from Cote and Sinopoli, the other two Gee-Gees who won the Hec Crighton were Rick Zmich in 1982 and Paul Paddon in 1970.
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