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In the football world, everybody lines up in the starting blocks at different times, but the final goal never changes. Simon Wray-Jantz hopped in the race just two years ago, but he’s already found a passion for the game that helped turn around his life.
The 6’0”, 196lbs linebacker out of Bellerose in Alberta took to football after developing some unhealthy eating and exercise habits, but now he’s looking to take the next step with dreams of playing in university or the CJFL after graduation.
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It didn’t take long for Wray-Jantz to brush up on his football history either, with the young linebacker citing Lawrence Taylor as a source of inspiration, mainly because he’s the only defensive player to ever win NFL MVP. He also lends a ton of credit to his coach, Jason Wetsch, who took him under his wing as a raw rookie late to the game,
“He was my coach when I started about 2 years ago, and I was brand new and didn’t know a thing about football or even sports in general. He helped me improve to the point where I think I can say I’m a pretty good linebacker.”
Alongside his duties at Bellerose, he’s also spent some time honing his skills with the Edmonton Seahawks. It’s not easy to step into a linebacker’s role with little experience at the high school level, but Wray-Jantz has flourished playing all three positions in the middle, and enjoys the challenge of trying to control the game on the ground and through the air.
“The balance of mental acuity and physical prowess is always a great challenge for me, as a linebacker you need to be capable in pass coverage as well as run stopping. I’m focusing on my job and my reads and keys, I usually bounce around from strong to weak to middle linebacker so my job changes a lot.”
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Despite feeling more comfortable going into his junior year with the Bulldogs, Wray-Jantz knows he still has a lot of catching up to do with some of his peers who began their football journey long ago. He’s determined to hit the ground running going into the new year, and is hoping his off-season training pays dividends from day one,
“I’d say that size is something important right now. I’ve been bulking up for a month so far while doing agility drills to stay nimble. I also work on tackling form a lot, I feel like a lot of linebackers get rusty with tackling in the off-season, so I practice the fundamentals quite often.I have a pretty solid workout routine and footwork practice schedule that I stick to most of the year which helps the startup of every season go a little bit faster.”
Wray-Jantz says he’s interested in pursuing graphic design after her hangs up the cleats for good, but in the meantime he’s focussed on becoming the best teammate and prospect possible at Bellerose in 2019,
“I guess my teammates would say that I’m pretty down to earth, anybody can come to me with a question about their job or the scheme and I’ll be glad to help them. I would say that my work ethic and attitude are unparalleled to most players, I’m extremely coachable and I always want to learn more about the game.”
Simon Wray-Jantz (#20/#44)
Position: Linebacker
Ht/Wt: 6’0″, 196lbs
Teams: Bellerose, Edmonton Seahawks
Class: 2021
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