The Yorkton Regional High School played host to a nine year CFL veteran Thursday afternoon as current CFL free agent safety and Grey Cup champion J.R. LaRose, who has spent time in the CFL with both the Edmonton Eskimos and B.C. Lions, paid a visit to the school to speak to students about overcoming adversity to be the best you can be.
LaRose spoke about his own experiences, growing up in a broken home with a drug addicted mother, living on welfare and having to steal spare food to fend off hunger. “I spoke about facing obstacles and having to overcome different adversities,” said LaRose, who was born on a Saskatchewan reserve but raised in Edmonton, Alberta. “When you’re faced with different things in life you’ve got to learn to overcome them. I had to do that as a kid.
“My mom was someone that struggled with addiction for many years of her life. I grew up in a broken family but I was able to overcome that.”
The reason he was able to overcome his troubled childhood, he told the YRHS students, was because he found something that he fell in love with: football. “We’re all good at one thing,” he told the YRHS students. “It’s just that we’ve got to find out what that one thing is and go full into it.
“There are doctors, construction workers, lots of different kinds of things a person can get in to, but why not be the best at whatever it is that you choose to do?”
However his message didn’t end there. He made sure that everyone listening knew that once you found something you were great at, you still had to overcome adversity to be successful.
For him, his natural athletic abilities were not enough to avoid possible career ending injuries; something he had to overcome not once, not twice, but three times. “I broke my leg in 2008, snapped it in half, then came back in 2010 and I broke it again, dislocated my ankle and tore the tendons in my foot,” said LaRose, continuing, “Then in the year I came back I ended up breaking my forearm so it’s one of those things where I have a hard time when people tell me I can’t do something. Every time I’ve broken my leg or had a major injury I’ve had a doctor or someone tell me that I couldn’t come back from this injury.
“It’s all about proving people wrong. Like the saying says, a minor setback for a major comeback. I’ve been able to do that for the last nine years of professional football and it’s truly been a blessing and my message to all those kids was that you can’t let other people tell you that you can’t do something. Work hard, stay positive and no matter what you’ll find success.”
LaRose’s message is no doubt a great one. But why did the CFL veteran decide to speak in front of the YRHS student body when he was in town only to speak at Football Night in Saskatchewan?
According to LaRose, it’s because he’ll never pass up an opportunity to make an impact. “It’s all about giving back and trying to reach a few kids because I know so many kids that have gone through the same things that I did and I want to provide them with hope,” offered LaRose. “I want to show them that there is light at the end of the tunnel even if it seems dark right now. You just have to persevere through it.
“After the presentation I had a few kids come up to me, some got emotional because they went through some of the similar things that I went through as a kid but that’s what it’s all about. Helping them and hopefully making a positive impact on their lives.”
