While the home team continues to lick its wounds after a miserable CFL debut, Manitoba's top NFL prospect is strutting around with the swagger of a champion these days. OK, maybe Brandon's Israel Idonije isn't exactly swaggering, but he is a champion after helping the Berlin Thunder win the World Bowl, the title game of the NFL Europe season, last weekend.
The towering defensive end, an Ottawa Renegades draft pick now with the Chicago Bears, even picked up a sack in the big game, capping his first season back on the field since he was with the U of M Bisons in 2002.
"It made all the hard work and everything worth it," Idonije was saying yesterday. "I played in the Vanier Cup (in 2001), and we lost that national championship. It was good to win it this time, good to be on the other end of the spectrum. I never want to lose in a big game like that again. It's a terrible feeling."
Three years after the Bisons lost that Canadian college championship, the man who continues to beat the odds is being fitted for a World Bowl ring.
This tale just keeps getting better.
That Idonije is even competing alongside NFL prospects out of U.S. Division I colleges is mind-boggling. But his story has been growing, along with his frame, ever since he began playing nine-man football in Brandon in Grade 12.
"My coach said I'd taken a lot of strides," said Idonije, now 6-foot-7, 265 pounds. "My last three regular season games were my best games. I felt it was coming together for me then. It's a shame it took me that long to figure it out.
"But hey, that's why I went down there. I hadn't played in an actual game ... for a year. So it's finally great to be in a situation where the bullets are real, and get at 'er."
Before the World League season began in March, Idonije's last game was the East-West Shrine game, a college all-star game in January, '03. That led to an NFL tryout with Cleveland, but an ankle injury sidelined him.
The Bears picked him up this year and sent him to Europe, a developmental league for prospects. He returned from Germany last Sunday, but it's not like he'll be able to put his feet up and take a breath.
In fact, what Idonije faces in the next several weeks might be his stiffest challenge, yet.
Not-so-fresh off a 10-game season, he was right back in a Bears mini-camp this week, jet lag and all. That'll go until July 8, followed by the main camp three weeks later.
His goal, unthinkable a year or two ago: to make the team.
"I've got to make sure I rest up and get my body right, 'cause I've got another, hopefully, 16 weeks to go. Or more than that," Idonije said. "It's going to be grueling, but hey, that's a small price to pay."
It's said rookies often hit the wall midway through their first pro season, because they're used to a short college schedule. After playing overseas, Idonije is headed straight for the thing.
"I know what's coming, I can prepare for it -- get extra sleep, extra therapy and massages, whatever I need," he said. "It's going to be a long year. I've just finished playing four months of football, and I've got another six months to go.
"But it beats doing anything else. You've gotta remember that."
The future is still uncertain for Idonije. At 23, his upside remains huge.
But in the cut-throat world of the NFL, he could be out on his ear again tomorrow.
"Football's a tough business -- you don't really have much security or know what's going on," he said. "All I can do is worry about what I can do. The main thing is I have to be able to run, run for days. Out-work other people, and I'm pretty sure I'll be in good shape."
