Ottawa’s NFL, CFL, NCAA players give back at Gridiron Greats Showcase

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Seventeen years ago, as a 21-year-old, Victor Tedondo started paying it forward, putting on a three-day Gridiron Academy football camp in Ottawa.

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He couldn’t have imagined where it would be in 2024. He couldn’t have dreamed the transformative impact he and his academy would have in creating opportunities for young football players from the Ottawa area.

And, those whose lives he helped change, many of whom are in the National Football League, Canadian Football League and Division 1 NCAA football are now the ones paying it forward, something that hits close to home for Tedondo, who moved to Canada from Cameroon in 1996 and spoke no English at the time. 

Doing good for others is something Tedondo preaches to the players he mentors at Gridiron Academy.

Next Saturday, April 27, Gridiron Academy, Uplift Ottawa and NFL Canada will be hosting Gridiron Greats Showcase (for youth between the ages of eight and 18) at the Louis Riel Dome, from 1 to 5 p.m. 

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Alumni helping out will at the camp include Eli Ankou (Buffalo Bills), Jonathan Sutherland (Seattle Seahawks), Luiji Vilain (Carolina Panthers), Patrice Rene (B.C. Lions) and Akheem Mesidor (University of Miami). There will also be several Division 1 U.S. college football players. 

It’s really an extremely impressive list of players who have gone through the grind with Gridiron Academy and, with a lot of hard work, have successfully gotten opportunities and made good on them.

“This really warms my heart that so many are coming back to Ottawa to help with the camp,” Tedondo said. “To get to this point where those young men are now teachers and leaders, that’s every coach’s dream. They’re not just football players, they’re great human beings. For them to want to help, that is priceless. As much skin as I had in their journey, it’s hard to put into words what they’re doing now.”

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The idea for this megacamp, with so much local star power involved, started to take shape late last year.

“The boys were back home around Christmas,” Tedondo said. ” Eli wanted wants to stay involved in the community, he wanted to do his own camp. Jonathan was like, ‘You know, I want my own camp.’ Patrice was like, ‘I want to do something back home, too.’ Akheem said he wanted to give back to the community, he wanted his own camp. (Arizona Cardinals’) Jesse (Luketa) will have his own camp this summer. I said, ‘Guys, I don’t have the bandwidth. Let’s put all the camps together.’ That’s where this came from.”

Making a splash with a big annual camp has become easier to pull off over the years, especially with the overwhelming support Tedondo is getting.

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“If you asked me that question, am I anxious to get this camp going, 10 years ago, for sure, it was a lot,” he said. “But we’ve been doing this year in year, year out. We have 14 guys (from Gridiron Academy) that played Division 1 football last year, at least 10 will be here to help with the camp. They took a weekend off to make sure they’ll be here. It really speaks to (the younger kids).”

The camp has a big football element — stuff like positional training, 1-on-1 drills, 40-yard dash, broad jump and 3-cone drill — but there’s also a mental health seminar and nutritionist.

The players judged to be the most promising at the U12, U14 and U18 levels will be given one year of free training with Gridiron Academy.

Gridiron Academy (gridironacademy.org) is about making better football players, but the boundaries go way beyond that. Tedondo’s goal is to make youngsters better people. He wants them to be humble and thankful, work hard and make a difference. The son of two academics — his mom Jeosianne and dad Victor (a professor in mechanical engineering at the University of Montreal) — Tedondo also wants the academy’s kids unlocking their brains.

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Said Ankou in an interview in 2020: “From Day 1, Victor’s said, ‘If your grades aren’t straight, you’re not working out with me.’ The first thing he told me, ‘I will put as much effort into helping you out as you’re willing to put into yourself.’ That’s something that stuck with me. Every time he was training me, I gave it everything I had — not just training or football, but in school.”

While Ottawa has turned into a hotbed for producing terrific young football players, Tedondo said the impact went well beyond the national capital’s borders.

“It’s not just for our program and Ottawa, it’s for Canada,” he said. “One coach was telling me (former Penn State and most recently B.C. Lions quarterback) Michael O’Connor is the one that opened doors (for Canadians to play in the NCAA). There have been guys who have paved the road for other guys. It not only helps Ottawa, it’s going to help young Canadians, who see they can do it, too.”

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