Ticats receiver Luke Tasker making a name for himself at second consecutive Grey Cup

VANCOUVER – Football fans of a certain age or from a certain part of North America are no doubt used to seeing the name Tasker running up and down the sidelines in a championship football game. For the second year in a row, however, it is young Luke Tasker who is playing in the Grey Cup and trying to achieve something his famous father never did.

Steve Tasker was a seven-time All-Pro wide receiver with the Buffalo Bills and was part of four consecutive AFC championship teams. The Bills, of course, lost all four Super Bowls. His 23-yeard-old son gets his second opportunity to add a title to the family trophy case on Sunday.

The younger Tasker is a wide receiver with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats who face the Calgary Stampeders in Sunday’s 102^nd Grey Cup game. Though Steve Tasker never got his ring, he has helped Luke prepare for the big game.

“His words of advice are that it’s just another game,” Luke Tasker said Thursday. “You have to approach it with the same preparation and detail that you normally have, but also not to make too much of it. You can’t get tight before a big game, just go out and have fun.”

In his second season in the CFL, Tasker has blossomed into a go-to receiver for the Ticats. His 937 receiving yards in 2014 led the Ticats and were good enough for fifth overall in the CFL. He added five touchdown receptions on the year as well.

Listed at 5’11” and 190 pounds, Tasker is becoming the latest in a long line of diminutive receiving stars in the CFL.

“It’s a receivers’ league, it’s a passing league,” Tasker said. “With the motions and the larger space it’s to the advantage of passing oriented offences and [smaller] guys who can find their way into zones and between defensive gaps in the secondary. It’s worked out for me so far, it’s a good place to be.”

Tasker is similar to other former CFL receiving greats in that he did not play big-time college football in the U.S.. Instead he played four years at Cornell, an Ivy League school where there are no athletic scholarships and no postseason play. Cornell is not exactly a football factory either, with their last conference championship coming in 1990 and having just one All-American since 1940.

But at Cornell his dream of playing professional football remained alive thanks to the tutelage of head coach Kent Austin – the former CFL All-Star quarterback, and now, his head coach with the Tiger-Cats.

“The first thing you recognize about Luke is he’s just an unbelievable person,” Austin said. “He is very bright. He was a different type of guy in the Ivy League, and I mean this in a positive way, that in the Ivy League there is so much less extrinsic motivation to play there that if you don’t find guys that just really love the game, all the other pulls on them… can dampen the motivation of a guy.

“And he’s got great hands, he’s really bright, he’s got time and space ability. He’ll catch everything. He’s tough. He’s got a high football intelligence.”

Tasker agrees that the Ivy Leauge breeds a different kind of football player.

“I think it’s pretty tough to recruit to the Ivy League because you have to find real athletes, guys who can play at a high level but also have to be able to get into school and stay in school,” Tasker said. “If you really want to excel there, along with your passion for football, you have to have a passion to succeed in the classroom. It does take a different kind of athlete.”

Despite those hurdles that come with Ivy League football, Tasker did not let it stand in his way of becoming a pro. After his senior season with the Big Red he signed with the San Diego Chargers but was cut at the end of training camp. Weeks later he made his CFL debut and hasn’t looked back.

“It was always a goal for me to play professionally,” Tasker said. “When I chose to go to Cornell it was still something in my mind that I’d have a chance to play after college.

“If you’re good enough, they’ll find you.”

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