:format(webp)/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/sports/argos/2022/08/13/the-most-interesting-man-in-the-cfl-is-an-argo-with-an-ambitious-game-plan-to-help-kids/argos_snap.jpg?w=1920&resize=1920,0&ssl=1 "The most interesting man in the CFL is an Argo, with an ambitious game plan to help the kids")
When McLeod Bethel-Thompson lined up at quarterback for the Argonauts in Friday night’s game at Hamilton, he brought a strong arm and the ability to guide one of the best offenses in the Canadian Football League.
The 33-year-old commuter from San Francisco is also a scholar, educator, husband, father, and dreamer. On the team, he is sometimes called “the most interesting man in the CFL”.
Bethel-Thompson has master’s degrees in history (from California State University, Sacramento) and education (University of California, Berkeley). His “pipe dream,” as he calls it, is to improve the connection between sport and education for young athletes with professional careers on the horizon.
“I’m interested right now in sports psychology,” Bethel-Thompson told the Star in a recent interview. “My thing is, how can we rehabilitate people through sport?
“I think the sport is in a mode where it is shaking kids up and spitting on them. It’s … taking this enormous amount of talent and getting them out of a bottleneck of 32 teams in the NFL, or nine teams in the CFL. We are not measuring success; We are professionalizing children at an early age. So I have a dream to rehabilitate children through sport and do the opposite, fix the bottom of it.”
Bethel-Thompson’s Master of Education thesis dealt with the application of educational terms to soccer and the value of collaboration.
“I think that’s what sport is: you’re giving a part of yourself and you’re doing your job, and you’re growing within that; you’re in that group setting,” said Bethel-Thompson.
“I want to eventually open a recovery school and get kids (14 or 15 years old) to recovery. They are basically failing. The system is clearly failing them, so take them to a place and (use) sports as something to punish them.”
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Bethel-Thompson’s approach took shape in part while traveling to other countries. Along with CFL quarterback Jeremiah Masoli, she brought football and cheer to gang-infested neighborhoods in Samoa. She has also worked with local youth in El Salvador, with Sister Cassady.
“Mac is a very special person,” said Argos veteran kicker Boris Bede, one of Bethel-Thompson’s closest friends on the team. “If you get to know him, he is very selfless and welcomes people with open arms.”
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Her family lineage, Bethel-Thompson also has a brother, Dylan, which is interesting on its own.
- Dad Mark worked as a roadie with the Grateful Dead.
- The field marshal’s grandfather was at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, during the Japanese bombing of the US naval base that forced the Americans into World War II.
- Another grandfather, Wilbur Thompson, was the Olympic shot put champion in London in 1948.
- Bethel-Thompson partner Chinaka Hodge is a writer and executive producer on the Marvel Studios series “Ironheart.” They have a young daughter, Aziza.
On the field, Bethel-Thompson’s career has also been educational.
He entered the NFL in 2011, after going undrafted, and bounced around: 49ers, Vikings, Dolphins, Eagles, Patriots. He made his first CFL snap with the Argos in 2017. When the 2020 CFL season was canceled due to COVID, he held his own in the developing spring league.
“I didn’t even know I was the quarterback when I first came on the team,” said Bede, who made his Argos debut in 2021 after five seasons with the Montreal Alouettes. “There was a guy who was the quarterback, big beard and all. But… the more I got to know him, I saw how smart he is.
“He reads some books and everyone knows what he does for the children. He became my placeholder (on field goals) and I’m still learning things about him to be honest.”
Bethel-Thompson is still learning too. He is No. 1 on the depth chart for a first-time contender. The Argos are 4-4 and sit atop the Eastern Division despite Friday night’s 34-27 loss to the Tiger-Cats, in which he threw for 287 yards and a touchdown with no interceptions. .
“I’ve given myself permission to fail, where in the last couple of years I felt like I never had that chance because I was already on the brink,” he said. “My back was against the wall. Here, I know I’ll be driving this bus…
“So, it’s challenging in a different way. You want to have that sense of urgency, and you don’t want to get casual about it … because quarterbacking is measured by wins and losses. Having the mindset that I don’t have to be perfect, but (I also need to put) wins on the board.”
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