Victoria Sports Online

It’s not hard to think when you look at Angus Lennox that he might be a football player. At 5”11 250, this soon to be second year at McGill University possess both the body and the talent to be a CIS caliber athlete.

A Mt. Doug grad in 2008, Lennox didn’t play football until he began attending high school in grade nine, but took to it immediately. In his first two years in the game, Lennox helped the Jr. Rams to the playoffs both years as his skills continued to develop.

Following a disappointing grade 11 campaign when Mt. Doug missed the playoffs, Lennox was an instrumental part in the school’s best football team ever in his senior year. On top of the team making it to their first ever AAA Provincial Semi-Finals where they finally fell to the eventual champions Holy Cross, Lennox recorded 40 tackles on the defensive side and was named an All-Conference offensive lineman.

While several key moments such as a blowout playoff victory over Kelowna’s Rutland at BC Stadium remain in the mind of Lennox, he holds one memory especially close. “Beating Van College 28-7 at home was amazing. Everyone including The Vancouver Sun had written us off and we destroyed them. It was definitely a wake up call for the mainland.”

Lennox was touted by several Canadian Universities as a top lineman, as he eventually settled on Montreal’s McGill. But while Lennox was up to athletic challenge of attending the school, he also had to achieve the academic standard of a 90% average. Seeing that as just another challenge, Lennox kept his grades up and booked his ticket for Montreal.

Once he arrived for training camp last summer, Lennox began to notice the difference between high school and college football. “Everybody was an athlete,” describes Lennox. “No one was there too fool around and everybody had winning on their mind.”

Lennox dressed for 5 out of 9 games as an offensive tackle for McGill in his first season, as the Redmen went 0-8 in a tough Quebec division that included eventual Vanier Cup Champions Laval.

During this past winter, Lennox was moved from guard/tackle to center, where he believes he will be slotted in the future for McGill.

Back in Victoria for the summer, Lennox is giving back to his football roots by helping coach the spring league football team at Mt. Doug. He also spends time working with his Viking Metal band Scimitar. “I like to keep my life rounded,” claims Lennox. “Music is just another passion in my life.”

The band will be performing several times while Lennox is town over the summer with their first show coming June 5th at the Bayanihan Community Center on Blanshard.

Like many football fans in Victoria, Lennox is also a supporter of a larger emphasis of high school football in local schools. As of 2009 Mt. Doug and Belmont in Langford are the only two high school programs in the district. “It would be nice to see more school’s attempt to launch teams,” explains Lennox. “One of the reasons our victory over Van College was so sweet, was because many on the Lower Mainland referred to playing on Vancouver Island as farmland. Maybe if we weren’t so scared to invest the funding, we wouldn’t have that reputation.”

With or without a storied football system in place here on Vancouver Island, Lennox is proof that high caliber football players can be produced from our system and with four more years of CIS eligibility to come, it’s likely he’ll continue to make us proud for some time.