CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — Jay Dearborn was knocked down numerous times on the football field and got back up.
It only stands to reason that he would persevere when the same thing happened as he attempted to make a career from the game he loved.
The former Holland College Hurricane and Carleton Raven was expected to be taken in the 2019 CFL draft, but the night came and went without a call.
He later signed with the Saskatchewan Roughriders but got hurt in training camp and was cut on the day the roster was finalized.
A few weeks into the season, Dearborn was brought back to Saskatchewan and on July 20, he ran out of the tunnel with his teammates to thousands of cheering fans at Mosaic Stadium to make his CFL debut.
“It’s a crazy feeling,” said the six-foot-three, 209-pound defensive back. “It is loud, loud, loud.”
Dearborn, a 25-year-old from Yarker, Ont., didn’t get on the field that day with his parents (Ken Dearborn and Liz Shibley) in the stands but he did the following week in British Columbia against the Lions with his brother, Chris Shibley, cheering him on.
Dearborn credits his time at Holland College for helping him reach the CFL.
“There is absolutely no way I would be playing in the CFL today if I had not spent three years at Holland,” he said.
Collegiate career
Dearborn was looking at coming East after finishing Grade 13 in Ontario. His brother was attending St. FX in Antigonish, N.S., at the time and he liked the idea of smaller universities and communities.
The defensive back and kicker helped the ’Canes win three Atlantic Football League titles (2013-15) in his three years in Charlottetown. In his final year, Dearborn was taking a program he liked but wasn’t sold on it being a career.
College vice-president Michael O’Grady, who served as the team’s president of operations since it was formed 10 years ago, spoke with Dearborn about attending a combine.
Dearborn saw it as a way to open doors and make connections with other teams. The first test at the 2016 regional event was one of his specialties.
“I did my vertical jump and you could kind of feel the energy in the room change,” he said. “I knew what I was capable of, and it was a big number.”
Dearborn joined Carleton and played three seasons with the Ravens. After completing his university eligibility, Dearborn attended regional and national combines in preparation for the CFL draft.
His vertical jump was measure at 42 inches at the national combine, opening eyes once again, while he also performed well in the other tests.
Anxious night
Dearborn felt good about his performance at the combines, which included interviews with a half a dozen CFL teams.
He had calls from a handful of them leading up to, and including, draft day, checking on his willingness to play for them and the best phone numbers to reach him at.
Surrounded by family and friends on a Thursday night, Dearborn watched the draft unfold. As it turned to the later rounds, his phone remained silent.
“I was pretty crushed and dazed, like ‘what happened’?”
A few days later, Dearborn was notified he was on the Roughriders negotiating list, and team officials would be in touch to talk about next steps. It was a bit of a relief for Dearborn, but he didn’t get his hopes up until receiving the follow-up call a few days later.
“Even then, I didn’t want to believe it. (I didn't want) to be let down again,” he said.
Training camp
Dearborn later signed a three-year, non-guaranteed contract and got ready for training camp.
However, he injured his calf in his first pre-season game when a Calgary Stampeders player ran into him.
It took a few weeks before the explosiveness Dearborn was known for returned. It came too late for the rookie as the team cut him on final day to set the roster.
It felt like his feet had been swept out from under him again.
“Football was never my Plan A, but I worked for it as hard as I could. I wasn’t dependent on it and banking on that being my only future,” he said. “But still, you put so much time and effort into something and it gets totally taken away from you, it hurts.”
He went back to Ottawa and got treatment for his calf. A few weeks later, while returning from his family’s cottage, Dearborn’s phone rang. He was on a back road, and the reception wasn’t great. He had to ask them to repeat what they had said.
Dearborn was going back to the Roughriders.
Getting comfortable
Dearborn started on special teams and regularly received added responsibilities in Saskatchewan.
A student of the game, he studied and studied to know the playbook inside and out. It would enable him to jump in for a variety of people on the defensive side of the ball, if needed.
He played 14 games and made four tackles on special teams.
“I was always confident that his opportunity would come,” O’Grady said.
“His athletic abilities had got him notice, but his dedication, his perseverance and his coachability would eventually get him into the job. . . I figured Jay would be the one to make it.”
Dearborn is the latest Hurricane to make a name for himself on the football field.
Marcus Dunphy was the first Hurricane to earn a tryout and attend a CFL training camp when he went to the Toronto Argonauts camp in 2012. Kay Okafor learned the game at Holland College after coming to the Island from Nigeria. He went to St. FX and has played the past two seasons with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Vernon Sainvil plays professionally in the Indoor Football League in New Jersey.
“Jay will be remembered as a gentleman, a very fine and dedicated student and certainly one of the greatest athletes to ever go through the football program at Holland College,” O’Grady said. “Everything he has achieved he has worked for.”
Back on the Island
Dearborn recently returned to the Island and is doing some workouts with Wyatt Inman, who was his strength and conditioning coach with the Hurricanes and teaches sport and leisure management at Holland College.
Dearborn’s girlfriend, Madi Dayton, is living on the Island, and he’s spending time with her and getting a chance to reconnect with some of his former teammates.
“I love it here,” he said.
He will head back to Ottawa in January and work with Nick Westcott, strength and conditioning coach at Carleton, to prepare to be at his best for when the Roughriders open the 2020 training camp in May.
“I left Regina excited to get back there for the following season,” he said.
