Saskatchewan Roughriders legend Scott Schultz has seen a lot on the football field during his career, but few things have hit as hard as what the Balgonie Greenall Griffins are going through at the moment.
A coach with the Griffins, Schultz was on the sidelines when Balgonie player Hunter Gronick collapsed during a recent South Rural Football League contest in Swift Current. Gronick was subsequently taken to hospital where it was discovered he had a brain bleed. Emergency surgery was performed and Gronick is now recovering in hospital.
Schultz joined the SportsCage for his Midweek Soundoff segment, and the first order of business was to give an update on how things are going with the team in light of the terrifying incident.
“It's one of those things where in all my football career, you see lots of injuries, high school, college, pros, and I’ve never quite been through a situation as serious or as impactful as this one,” Schultz said. “So it kind of shook all of us pretty good and we're just keeping our prayers and thoughts around Hunter and his family right now.”
The Griffins find themselves in a bye week, which will give the players and everyone on the team extra time to try and recover from the incident.
“We had a practice last night and did some stuff the day before, we just got everyone together and just kind of had some team building and talked to the guys,” Schultz said. “I think the morale is strong to finish out the season, but of course we’ve got some guys that were pretty close to Hunter and they're just hoping their friend can recover.”
A GoFundMe has been launched in support of Hunter and the Gronick family and as of this writing has raised close to $51,000 of a $55,000 goal. You can donate yourself by clicking right here.
The Soundoff conversation continued and soon turned to the Labour Day Classic rematch, where Schultz pointed to the Saskatchewan offence as the biggest culprit in the loss — but not because of Trevor Harris.
“I think the complimentary football just wasn't there on offence and they just never got comfortable all day,” Schultz said “Meanwhile, if you told me that the defence was gonna have five sacks and hold them to 19 points, usually that's a win. So it's just a tough one, we split the series and we move on.”
Schultz also gave credit where credit was due in Winnipeg’s defence, especially the play of defensive back Redha Kramdi, who returned from injury and had an interception and forced fumble.
“Their secondary won the game for them, their defence played great on the backend for sure,” Schultz said.
Schultz also touched on Montreal’s rules-knowing ‘punt’ that turned a second-and-20 into a first down during the Alouettes’ 48-29 loss to the B.C. Lions. Receiver Cole Spieker caught a pass from Davis Alexander, kicked the ball over the line of scrimmage and recovered the short kick, instantly getting a first down under CFL rules.
“It’s cheesy, but listen, if I was on that team and we needed it to advance, I'd sure as heck support it,” Schultz said. “It's one of those nice, neat little anomalies in the CFL rulebook and if someone can exploit that to their advantage, good on them. It’s up to everyone else to be able to be alert and be able to stop that play.”
You can check out Schultz’s full conversation with Barney Shynkaruk beginning at the 53 minute mark in the video below.
