HALIFAX
You might vaguely remember Juwan Vint, if you lived in Westville in the early part of the 2000s.
Now a defensive lineman with the Saint Mary’s Huskies football program, Vint was just a little boy when his mom Denise Vint moved them from their home from their Westville home to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where she married an officer in the U.S. military.
“The last time I was home, was four years ago, when my dad passed,” said Denise Vint.
It was there, in Sooner country, that he started playing football a couple of years later, moving on to play at the junior and high school level.
“The whole town (Lawton, Ok) was a football town,” says Denise Vint, who graduated from Stellarton High School in 1993 and moved back to the Halifax area just a couple of months ago, after Juwan had decided he wanted to play north of the border.
“I’d be able to get around work just to go watch his games.”
Vint would go on to play football through his middle school and high school years, and spent a couple of seasons playing at Langston University in Guthrie, just outside Oklahoma City. Someone at Langston University answers the telephone in the football coach’s office, and summons co-defensive coordinator Kevin Griffin, who worked with Juwan for one season. “He won’t give you no problems, on or off the field,” says Griffin.
“He’s a quiet kid but when he’s on the football field, he gives you everything he has. We miss the kid around here.”
Standing at six-feet tall and weighing about 255 pounds, Vint isn’t that big when compared to many D-linemen.
“I try to make up for it with quickness,” said Vint, who had built a reputation for having an exceptional non-stop motor.
“Juwan is one of the most polished defensive players we have,” said Huskies’ head coach James Colzie. “He works hard and plays hard. Juwan is a great kid who has a great story. He’s made a bunch of plays for us and will be great for us in the future.”
The Huskies' season came to end last weekend with a loss to the St.FX X-Men in Halifax.
Denise Vint also has a son older than Juwan (Tre’), a 15-year-old daughter (Olivia) and a 10-year-old son (Dexter, named after her late father, but everyone calls him D.J.) who’s already a big boy and is into football. “You’ll probably be interviewing him in a few years,” she says with a laugh.
As far as Vint is concerned, football in Canada isn’t much different than the kind of university ball he’s accustomed to playing: things don’t change much in the trenches.
“The biggest difference is you have to line up further off the ball,” said Vint, referring to defensive players having to line up at least one yard from the line of scrimmage in Canadian football.
“But other than that, there isn’t much difference for me (and) it’s pretty much the same caliber (of play).”
