In the midst of a career year, it’s been something of a down week for Odell Willis.
As the CFL awards nominees have been named first from each team, then out of both divisions in the league, Willis won’t be the first-ever defensive player to be nominated for Most Outstanding Player (that honour goes to Solomon Elimimian). He won’t be getting defensive player of the year, either (again, Elimimian). He was named a CFL West All-Star this week but you know, been there/done that.
Before you’re even read this far, Willis would tell you that none of those personal accolades matter to him. He’s been saying all year that he’s chasing another first in his eight-year CFL career, in a Grey Cup.
As he and the Eskimos look to take the first of three steps to a championship on Sunday against the Riders, there’s one award that, if it existed, Willis would be a frontrunner for and that’s Most Outstanding Quote.
When things are good or bad (including last year’s four-win season), Willis has almost always been fun to talk with. He’s the guy you hear across the fieldhouse in the middle of the huddle at the start of an indoors practice. You can still hear him all the way up in the press box some days when the team is practising on the field at Commonwealth Stadium.
Some teammates might think he’s a lot to take at times, but no one can argue that Odell Willis is about bringing positivity to work every day.
“I don’t like my teammates having a down day,” he said on Wednesday. “We’re blessed to be doing something we love and on top of that we get paid to do it. I just like to see everybody up. If everybody’ up it’s hard to stop positive energy.
“I don’t care how you do it, how many points you’re down by, when you get positive energy going and you’ve got a lot of people giving up positive energy it’s hard to stop.”
Here are a few of his best sound bites over the last couple of weeks.
From Wednesday, talking about Darian Durant just being a text away:
On Thursday, he gave us a scoop on the Esks starting QB:
During the CFR, he entertained the idea of bull riding and mutton busting.
