What drew you to Mac?

Really the football program was number one for me. They had great coaches and felt like a comfortable fit for me. It’s more of a family feel at Mac. You go to some other schools and they show you interest, but you see the team atmosphere and what they have in the locker room and nothing stood out. The “family feel” at Mac felt like no other school. I visited other schools in Ontario and went out east to Quebec, but I wanted to stay near my family and grandparents.

What was the toughest thing to get used to playing at the university level?

The speed. The speed of the game is way quicker and the concepts are more complex. In high school, playing receiver is kind of like “run as fast as you can and we’ll throw you the ball” and now it’s more “read the defenses and understand the game more”.

What is your favourite Mac football memory and why?

My favourite memory would probably be winning the Yates Cup last fall. Winning the Yates Cup was huge, especially with it being against Guelph. They are rivals so it was special winning at home too in front of family. Holding that Yates Cup and knowing that everything we worked for just paid off.

Do you have a favorite touchdown memory? Was there a specific ball that you caught that sticks out? 

I don’t think it has happened yet. I think if I ever break the school’s touchdown reception record—that would be my favorite catch. I just tied the record last game so hopefully this game coming up against Guelph I’ll be able to break Matt Perissini’s record. It’s cool to be considered with one of the best receivers Mac has ever produced in my third year.

What is your favorite part about playing for Mac?

The fans. Hamilton loves football. I feel like when you go to a game everyone’s involved. The atmosphere is awesome here. I feel like at other stadiums football is more of a social atmosphere, but at Mac, people truly do love football.

In terms of your wide receiver position, who do you look up to in the pros and who did you look up to in your early years at Mac?

In terms of pros I looked up to Jerry Rice. In high school I wore the No. 80. I look up to the way he works. Everyday he works at his craft and that’s what I try to do. The way he prepared for football stood out to me and he prepared the best. I think I try to adapt both the mental and the physical aspects of the game from Jerry Rice.

In first and second year playing for Mac, I looked up to Mike DiCroce. He had a lot of insight. He was OUA MVP so he knew what was going on. I also looked up to Dahlin Brooks because he played my position. He told me what to do, what to see, how to read different things on the field. I looked up to Mike DiCroce for playing style, but for the mental aspect of the game I looked up to Dahlin Brooks.

Why do you wear the No. 83?

That’s actually a good question. I wear the No. 83 because of my dad. He wore it in high school. When I came to Mac I knew Rob Babic was graduating so I asked him right away if 83 was an option for me, and he allowed me to take it so I was happy.

What is your current pregame pump-up song?

That’s difficult. I have a couple. I play a lot of Eminem. Eminem’s my go-to. Anything by him gets me pumped up. I play an Eminem playlist pre-game. Sometimes I’ll listen to Drake on the way to the game to calm me down but as soon as I’m on the field and in the changerooms, it’s mostly Eminem.

What gets you fired up on the field?

Seeing everyone else get fired up. When we’re in warmup and my teammates and coaches are excited, that gets me fired up. When the coaches are jumping around and going crazy and they’re not even playing, that gets me pumped. It’s an awesome sight. You know they’re fired up and they want to play so we play our heart out for them.

Do you have any pregame rituals or any words or initials you write on your wrist tape or cleats?

I’ve done it a couple times. I write “FAM” for my family. It’s who I play for. I write it on my wrist because I play for them and that’s who I show my game to.

What is your favourite route to run and why?

I like the deep ball. I like running the seam. I just run as fast as I can down the seam. I love the straight seam ball with Asher’s arm and just going up and getting the ball.

In terms of short routes, I like running the out. A lot of defenses like to play “off” because they know from watching film that I like to run deep, so I like changing up the pace with that route.

After Mac where do you want to be?

If everything goes well, the dream right now is to go to the CFL if I can. That’d be awesome. It’s what I’ve been training since high school for. It’s why I train. After Mac I want to keep playing football. It’s my passion. It’s what I work hard for and I want to continue playing football as long as I can. If I weren’t playing football I’d want to maybe coach or be a commentator. I want to stay in the football realm.

Okay, we’re going to shift gears a bit. What’s your idea of a perfect day?

I’m more of a beach guy. I like to be outside with friends, maybe tossing around the football on the beach. I’m a water guy so I like the beach. My perfect day would be hanging out at the beach with a couple of friends. It’s just chill, good weather and sand.

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live and why?

Somewhere tropical for sure. I’d want to get away from everything. Maybe Costa Rica or Hawaii. I’d want to live somewhere remote and away from the noise.

What is your favorite dish to eat and what’s your favorite dessert?

I’m a pretty basic guy. I like steak. I like steak and eggs. For dessert I’m a cake guy. I like vanilla cake. It’s plain and simple.

Who is your favorite athlete of all time?

Kobe Bryant for sure. 100%. The way he sees the game is different from everyone else. I’ve seen so many videos and documentaries on him and his work ethic is second to none. He prepares for the game like no one else. He’s in the gym before everyone else and he’s the last one to leave. He thinks about the game differently. If at one point in time I could eventually even get close to how he prepares for the game and develop his work ethic, that’d be awesome.

Q & A with Hamilton’s new mayor, Fred Eisenberger

The Silhouette sat down with Hamilton’s new mayor-elect, Fred Eisenberger, to discuss his time away from politics, the low voter turnout in Hamilton, and his short and long term goals to improve Hamilton. Eisenberger won the mayoral race on Oct. 27 with 49,020 votes, claiming 39.9 percent of the total vote.

After serving as mayor from 2006 to 2010, what have you learned that will influence your role as mayor this time around?

I had the unique and distinct opportunity to be the President and CEO of the Canadian Urban Institute, a research organization that works in countries and municipalities around the world. We had offices in the Ukraine, the Philippines, Jamaica and Ethiopia. I certainly got a strong sense of the challenges that other cities were going through and how they were dealing with them, and some practical applications in terms of what most cities need to do to improve their mobility and communities, and also how they use data.

Going forward with the huge volume of data that we are currently collecting, the Urban Institute was actually leading the way in how to mine that, analyze it, evaluate it, clean it, scrub it, and then make it useful for future decision making. That experience has certainly given me a lot of additional insight into what cities could, should, and need to do in the future.

Do you have any plans to address the low voter turnout (34 percent) in Hamilton?

Yes, during the course of the campaign I said I would like to have the online network voting instituted by the next election. This has been used, online, phone-in, dial-in or mail-in, or all of the above, so that accessibility to voting is vastly increased. It also requires a discussion with the school board in terms of educating kids from grade 1 right through grade 12 on every election, on the candidates and get them to vote through every election between grades one and grade 12. I think voting is a learned behaviour, and either you learn it at school or you learn to take that responsibility from your parents, and maybe people do, but obviously 60 percent or more of the population does not. So it’s something that we have to teach…and I think it has to happen in the schools and I want to have a discussion with the school board in terms of making that a required part of the curriculum.

What are your main priorities for the next few months?

Obviously staffing up for the mayor’s office, sitting down with Council and looking at our strategic direction and getting a clear buy-in in terms of either affirming or adjusting the strategic direction depending on what Council wants to do, including staff. Having a process developed for public transportation, through the course of the campaign I talked about a citizen’s jury process to look at all the evidence around public transit, BRT, LRT, just adding more busses, and make a recommendation through Council what they believe is the best course of action is for the city.

I did talk about starting or restarting the Vision 2020 exercise that was done about 25 years ago. It really talks about a community strategic and buy-in and I want to get that started sooner than later. If you look up Vision 2020, which is kind of the model we’ve been working from for the last 25 years, it’s clearly time to re-do that process. It brings in all people from all sectors and it breaks down the entire community in terms of different sectors and different priorities. I think the community at large needs to provide direction to the city for the next 20 or 30 years in terms of what they would like Hamilton to be.

What do you hope to accomplish by the end of your four-year term?

A lot. I mean, clearly public transportation is a big issue. I’m confident that we are going to have this sorted out and with any luck, a clear direction and maybe some shovels in the ground as a result of whatever transit proposal we pick.

Economic development continues to be the biggest issue for the city, the loss of commercial industrial tax space over the last 30 to 50 years has really put the pressure on the residential tax space and we need to turn that around. We need more job opportunities in our city. I would like to think that at the end of the four-year term we have made a significant dent in growing our commercial industrial tax space, filling up our industrial parks, and hopefully starting to work on the airport growth district as an opportunity for additional growth, as well as the brown fields.

Lastly I would say that I would like a pretty clear direction in a waterfront development corporation put in place for the CN lands and the steward street lands along the west harbourfront.

I’m looking forward to getting started December 1st, and I think it’s an exciting time. We’re going to have the PanAm games happening next year and Hamilton is certainly on the up swing and we just need to keep the momentum going.