Farhan Lalji helps turn boys into young men

[WestCoastJoe]

http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2014/12/2 ... young-men/

Farhan Lalji helps turns boys into young men

December 27, 2014. 9:04 am • Section: The Search

TSN journalist Farhan Lalji works with boys as coach of the New Westminster Hyacks. “Many young boys don’t have life skills. Even the brightest ones, who get good grades, often speak in monosyllables and ‘uh-huhs,’" he says. "They don’t know how to express themselves. So we do a lot of leadership training.”

TSN journalist Farhan Lalji works with boys as coach of the New Westminster Hyacks. “Many young boys don’t have life skills. Even the brightest ones, who get good grades, often speak in monosyllables and ‘uh-huhs,’" he says. "They don’t know how to express themselves. So we do a lot of leadership training.”

Posted by:
Douglas Todd

Farhan Lalji became devoted to football on Christmas Day — and thousands of New Westminster boys are grateful.

As one of the most popular sports journalists in Canada, as well as the longtime head coach of the New Westminster Secondary School’s Hyacks football team, Lalji remembers how left out he felt on Christmas Day as a youngster.

Arriving in Canada from Tanzania when he was four, the boy who would later go on to become Vancouver correspondent for TSN’s SportsCentre was raised in a devout Ismaili Muslim home in Burnaby. He attended mosque (which Ismailis call “jamatkhana”) five days a week.

Even though Lalji remains proud of his immigrant Ismaili parents, as a boy he felt they just “didn’t get Canadian society.” And he wanted to fit in. When Christmas Day came along each year, his parents ignored it.

“On December 25th I got nothing. It sucked,” Lalji says.

“As a boy my Christmas Day was spent watching two college football games from the U.S. That’s when I picked up an affinity for football, which led to playing it in high school. And the passion has lasted until this day.”

As a journalist, Lalji, 46, is now known to millions of Canadian football, and other, viewers. He covers the Canadian Football League, National Football League and the National Hockey League, as well as the Olympics. His Twitter account has 45,000 followers.

But, just as importantly, when the crisp days of late summer and fall have arrived over each of the past 11 years, Lalji has been spending almost as much time running the Hyacks football team (about 40 hours a week) as he does in his high-profile career at TSN.

He’s no ordinary coach either. He hopes he helps build boys into men, just as he believes his early football coaches, especially Burnaby Central’s Alex Reid, strengthened his male identity.

“Many people believe the lowest common denominator of society today is teenage boys,” Lalji says during an interview in New Westminster, where he lives with his wife Mary, and two young children, Lukas and Nora.

“Many young boys don’t have life skills. Even the brightest ones, who get good grades, often speak in monosyllables and ‘uh-huhs.’ They don’t know how to express themselves. So we do a lot of leadership training.”

The TSN journalist says players on his football team must wear a tie to New Westminster Secondary School on game days. And they’re all required to do three days of community service.

The boys who come into the Hyacks football program arrive with all sorts of personal stories, he says. “We’ve seen everything and anything.”

Some are using or selling drugs. Some are refugees from Honduras, Somalia or Afghanistan. Many are from single-parent homes. The boys from double-parent and well-off homes are also often struggling.

Lalji and his large team of coaches, including New Westminster Secondary School gym teacher Chad Oatway, go out of their way to teach the boys self-discipline and respect — for themselves and others.

That’s why senior football team players, who can number up to 70 at any given time, must wear a jacket and tie to New Westminster Secondary School on game days.

And they’re all required by Lalji, and his co-coaches and managers (which include five women), to do three days each season of community service.

He wants the boys to avoid “falling into a trap” of aimlessness. Every player must also agree to a drug test, if required.

Since Lalji and the coaches “intentionally take at-risk kids,” they have sometimes driven Grade 8 boys who are involved in crime to see the city jail, to show them where they’re headed. “It was a little shock therapy.”

The New Westminster Hyacks’ program is far-reaching. The youth football program can begin for some at age five, and in total the program can involve 300 young people in any given year, including a growing cheerleading squad.

The acronym for the values behind the Hyacks program is SHARP, which stands for selflessness, hard work, accountability, respect and passion.

“It’s not really about football,” Lalji says. “It’s about life, about teaching that excellence is a habit. We say that a lot.”

As a result of the leadership of Lalji and others, the high school, and the Hyacks football team, now lie at the heart of New Westminster community life.

On Friday nights in the fall more than 2,000 New Westminster residents can show up to watch a Hyacks game.

“It’s like a giant family,” Lalji says, with his wife and children also heavily involved with the team. This summer the team went to play in Texas.

For his service to football and young males, Lalji has twice been named runner-up for NFL National High School Coach of the year. And in 2012 he was celebrated as New Westminster’s Citizen of the Year.

Many of the boys who play for the Hyacks make the high school’s honour roll. And 40 of the players Lalji has coached have gone on to play college football. Two of them — Casey Chin and Cody Husband (both of whom are of part-Asian heritage) — have played for the B.C. Lions.

As an immigrant, Lalji points to the broad ethnic makeup of players on the Hyacks team because he believes football is an excellent way to create interracial friendships and help young newcomers to integrate into Canada.

Unlike ice hockey, he says, football is not too expensive to play and someone can become great at it even if they start at a late age. Lalji also thinks football teaches boys how to control aggression, as well as set goals.

One of Lalji’s own goals remains winning a B.C. high school football championship. So far the best the team has done is make it several times to the provincial semifinals.

Even though there’s nothing wrong with that, especially when it comes to building boys’ characters, Lalji admits, “It does bug me.”

As for his personal and spiritual life, Lalji no longer regularly attends mosque. “It diminished over time.”

But he does continue to believe Ismailism is a “wonderful” religion, which helped teach him “to believe in a higher power, and that it’s not all about me.”

Now that he’s an adult and can make his own choices, Lalji and his Catholic wife put a fair amount of effort into celebrating Christmas, mostly as a time of family, friends and community. “Our house becomes like a revolving door.”

With six-year-old Lukas now intensely interested in football, Lalji is planning to stay involved with the Hyacks a while longer, to the relief of residents who so appreciate the dynamic program he’s created.

“I don’t always have good ideas, but I never have small ideas,” Lalji says.

“I wanted this program to be big. And I think that’s happened. I want the kids to feel part of something special.”

[WestCoastJoe]

Nice article.

Farhan Lalji has done a terrific job with the Hyacks. He is very good in the media. He is not afraid to make some critical comments. We are lucky to have him in the Lower Mainland.

https://twitter.com/farhanlaljitsn

[TheLionKing]

Big fan of Farhan. Very articulate and knowledgeable. Squire Barnes and Perry Solkowski could learn a few things

[MexicoLionFan]

Big fan of Farhan. Very articulate and knowledgeable. Squire Barnes and Perry Solkowski could learn a few things

I agree...I too am a huge fan of Farhan...very SMART person and tells it like it is which is a RARE thing in this Corporate controlled world!

[Toppy Vann]

Big fan of Farhan. Very articulate and knowledgeable. Squire Barnes and Perry Solkowski could learn a few things

I agree...I too am a huge fan of Farhan...very SMART person and tells it like it is which is a RARE thing in this Corporate controlled world!

He does a great job yes.

I thought he did a good job filling in as play by play for Cuthbert (?) IIRC and he got trashed like Rod Black does. Kind of a Canadian fan tradition to trash broadcasters.

He seems to run a very good program there an it was a good story.

Coaching high school is not as easy as a community team as you take those who turn up at your school. I found HS frustrating vs. community football as we had so many big guys with no skills and no understanding of the game as they had no experience.