Darnell Sikorski, coach of Mary Persons’ opponent New Westminster, Canada
Today’s interviewee is Darnell Sikorski, coach of the New Westminster Hyacks, a Canadian team that will play at Mary Persons on Friday night. The Hyacks – a name taken from the Chinook Indian dialect, meaning quick or fast – have flown more than 2,000 miles to become the first high school football team outside the United States to play in Georgia in more than 75 years.
The New Westminster football team is shown on its inbound plane from British Columbia to Atlanta. The Hyacks will play at Mary Persons High on Friday.
1. How did this unique game come about? “It’s been a tradition for us to play what we call these travel games every three or four years. We went to California in 2011 and 2017 and down to Texas in 2014. So it’s time to go travel again, and we were looking for a spot that would be good. We kicked the tires around California again, and our head coach had some contacts in Illinois. Then we thought, ‘What about Georgia?’ That would be completely different. When we reached out to coaches from different states, Coach [Brian] Nelson at Mary Persons sent us an email, and that went into a couple of texts and a phone conversation, and we all decided this is something we would really like to do, for them to host a Canadian team and for us to travel down to the Southeast.” [Sikorski was asked what he knew about Georgia football. He said, “I’m a wing-T guy, and I knew about Camden County and their program in the early 2000s. Then there are some up-and-coming programs like the Miltons and the Bufords that you hear about from afar. I know the talent is really good, and they care deeply about football. We hear about the Southern bands and the cheer squads. We fully expect to see that on Friday night.”
2. What are your goals for the trip? “We definitely want to come down and compete to the best of our ability, but aside from the football game, for a lot of our guys, this is their first trip on their own without their families. To fly 2,400 miles away is special and takes them out of their comfort zone and exposes them to what big-time football is like. For us, we’re in the same pond where you see the same teams all the time. The South is so culturally different from the Pacific Northwest. And they’ll be with some of their best friends, so it’s a trip they’ll remember the rest of their lives.”
3. How would you describe high school football in British Columbia? “The whole season is probably 13 weeks, shorter than here in Georgia. Ours is called a provincial championship rather than a state championship. BC High School Football has two main levels – AAA and AA. We compete at the AAA level. If all goes well, we expect to be in the championship game. We are the only Canadian province that plays four-down American high school rules. The rest of Canada plays CFL rules. Hockey is the biggest sport in Canada, and lacrosse in our community is a huge sport as well. The Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame is in New Westminster. So football is next in line after those two. We don’t always get the top athletes. We try to do our best. We’ve been one of the highest-producing schools for Division I players in American college football. Overall with both NCAA and Canadian universities, we’ve had over 70 play at the next level since 2003.” [British Columbia’s tradition of using American football rules goes back to the 1940s and is related to its proximity to Seattle. The next-closest big Canadian city, Calgary, is 12 hours away.]
4. What’s your itinerary? “We’ll have practices every day, of course, and we have one excursion planned each day. We’re coming in tonight [Tuesday] and going straight to practice and then having dinner. Tomorrow we go to the National Center for Civil and Human Rights and on Thursday we’re going to the College Football Hall of Fame. It's a packed trip overall. Coach Nelson has invited us for a community pep rally Thursday where they’re expecting over 1,000 people. Players will be signing autographs for the people in the community. There’s a big dinner. While it's unlikely that we can make that due to our itinerary, that's all what we’re talking about, things that we don’t experience in Canada. On Friday on game day we’ll do a small stopover on one of the spots downtown like Centennial Olympic Park, then head down to the game. On Saturday, we’re watching a college football game. We’re going to see Auburn for their home opener [vs. Alabama A&M]. We have sideline passes for pregame and a luncheon and see SEC football in person. We’ll fly back Sunday.”
