By François Ferland
MontrealAlouettes.com
Montreal – Sean Whyte will repeat it to anyone who will listen to him. He’s never “taken as much pleasure away from playing football as [he] does right now.” And not just because he’s coming off of a week which saw him break a team record that’s stood since 1976, or because it was held by former star kicker Don Sweet, who Whyte knows well.
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Sean Whyte was traded to the Alouettes roughly a month before the start of training camp. |
“I’ve never taken as much pleasure away from playing football as I do right now because I feel comfortable within my new surroundings, and am impressed by the way that Coach Trestman prepares and leads the team,” explained Whyte, who very briefly joined, and then surpassed Sweet at the summit for most consecutive complete field goals kicked by an Alouettes kicker this past Saturday in Calgary.
He achieved the feat thanks to his three successful field goal attempts against the Stampeders, his first two placing him level with Sweet at 21, followed by his third which allowed him to take sole possession of the kicking crown at 22.
Sean Whyte was traded to the Alouettes by the BC Lions on May 8 of this year, roughly a month before the start of training camp. Never an easy situation to live through, being traded can be even harder when you’re uprooted from the place you call home, which is exactly what happened to Whyte, a Surrey-native who not only grew up in British Columbia, but also spent his amateur years with the Surrey Rams of the Canadian Junior Football League.
The move didn’t surprise Whyte because he felt it was coming. “I actually caught wind of it before it became official, so I prepared myself just in case, feeling as though it could be beneficial towards my career.”
In McCallum’s shadow
Having signed with the Lions in 2007 as a territorial exemption, Whyte spent the entire 2008 season as a backup, not participating in a single game.
The following year however, he was called upon to fill-in for veteran kicker Paul McCallum for more than half of the regular season, showing signs of brilliance while connecting on 21 of 29 field goal attempts.
Nevertheless, he was once again relegated to his backup role in 2010, following McCallum’s return to both health and form, he who has been playing in the CFL since 1993. Needless to say, Whyte’s time with the Lions has had its ups and its downs, although the highest points were probably those involving Don Sweet himself, given that the latter was his kicking coach in BC. In terms of teachers, Whyte would have been hard-pressed to ask for better.
“Don Sweet made me work very hard,” underlined Whyte. “As a perfectionist, he demands a lot of effort from those he is coaching. For my part, I had to work on my punting technique in particular, while my placekicking motion had the fluidity of a soccer player.”
Whyte was 17 years old when he began playing football. “I was approached in high-school because our team needed a kicker, and I was met with success as of my first game,” remembered Whyte.
One of his teammates growing up was Michael Buono, son of Head Coach and General Manager of the BC Lions, Wally Buono, something which no doubt helped open doors for Whyte towards a career in the CFL.
Today, the Alouettes are the ones benefitting from Sean Whyte’s years of apprenticeship.
