It’s hard to believe that Ben Rush was a slotback just a few years ago. I say that because he has been such a dominating defensive end ever since. The Humboldt native has a trophy case which includes, “Rookie of the Year” in Grade 10, “Most Improved Player” with the Calgary Colts 2 years ago and “Lineman of the Year” last year where he led all of Canada with 10 sacks.
The 21 year old says he wants to take a business program at the U of S, a place where he has always wanted to play football. In fact, he was worried that he wouldn’t get a chance to play for the Dogs. Offers started coming from a lot of schools except the U of S. University teams such as the Calgary Colts, Alberta Golden Bears, McGill, Mount Allison, St. Mary’s and Concordia came calling but not Saskatchewan. It was a relief when Brian Towriss finally gave him a call. He said, “He gave me a call when I was in Calgary. I was at work and I was pretty excited to hear from him because I’d been getting some calls from a bunch of other schools out east and a few schools in the west. I was telling my mom a few days earlier that I was a little bummed that I hadn’t got a call from the Huskies yet and then it was pretty neat to have him give me a call. He knew I was sold on the team probably right when I first talked to him as I was pretty pumped. It was almost like a relief. That was my choice, I knew that’s where I wanted to go.”
Rush says he hopes to make an immediate impact with the team but says the position is wide open with lots of competition and that no promises have been made. The coaching staff has already told him that is the deepest the team has ever been on the defensive line. Whether he is in a starting role or on the sidelines, the 6’4 225 pound giant is looking forward to being on the field in front of 5000 screaming fans and being part of the ‘Game Day’ experience which is being talked about all across Canada. He said he was playing in front of less than 500 fans at McMahon Stadium with the Colts. Because he played there for 3 years, by CIS rule, he has used up a full year of CIS eligibility.
Rush is of course the brother of an Olympian. Lyndon Rush won a bronze medal at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. In fact, Lyndon played for the Green & White for 5 years. But Ben is looking to make a name for himeself. He and his family are very close. He has 5 siblings (3 brothers & 2 sisters). All 3 of his brothers played football and everyone is both athletic & supportive of each other. Most of them including his parents live in Sylvain Lake, about 15 minutes west of Red Deer.
I asked him about what the biggest difference was between junior football and CIS (He knows CIS competition from Spring Camp). He said, “In junior at practice, when you’re taking reps, you’ll go against really good guys but then you’ll get the odd rep or 2 against a guy you’re thinking wow, maybe you shouldn’t really be here whereas with the Huskies, everybody’s good. Everybody’s fast and nobody’s out of place.” As for his biggest challenge. Rush says, “Things like learning systems, working on my run game, I want to improve on that and I want to get good at playing special teams too because I didn’t really do a lot of special teams in my last 2 years.”
Ben has been learning from some of the veterans which actually surprised him a little bit. He said, “It was really cool because usually when you show up as a new guy in camp, the vets sometimes give you that disapproval look and are not the most friendly but the guys all seem pretty good. One guy in particular that was really helpful in camp was a 5th year guy, Vaughn Rice. He was helping me out. Kyle Kuzak, he was a good guy to learn from. It just seems like everyone wants to win. It’s competative but it’s not a bunch of backstabbers. I’m really excited for that.
It was funny when I mentioned to him about the Dogs Breakfast. He chuckled saying he didn’t know he was supposed to dress up. He said B.T. told him that he was going to give him a jersey so he figured a few hundred people might be there not a few thousand. Rush said it was pretty a pretty amazing experience and having Warren Moon speak was unbelievable.
Rush may have been spending the summer building overhead power lines in Olds but he says he will be ready on August 20th to start main camp. He has been working out and keeping in shape despite being on the road a lot. Just talking to him makes one thing obvious, it will be tough to stop him from playing a major role with this team in the years to come.
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