After nearly five decades, McMaster graduate from class of 1965 reunited with lost graduation ring just in time for 83rd birthday
McMaster alum Morgan Perigo lost his graduation ring in 1977 during a family vacation in Barbados when it slipped off into the ocean. Nearly five decades later, he was reunited with it thanks to professional freediver Alex Davis and McMaster Alumni officer Laura Escalante.
Davis discovered the McMaster ring using an underwater metal detector and contacted McMaster University to track down its owner.
Davis discovered the McMaster ring using an underwater metal detector and contacted McMaster University to track down its owner.
Davis's email to McMaster reached Laura Escalante, a
McMaster alumni officer, who took on the task of identifying the ring’s owner. Escalante identified the owner, Frederick Morgan Perigo, by cross-referencing the engraved graduation year, 1965, and the initials "FMP" with alumni records.
Escalante shared insights about the collaborative effort that ultimately reunited the ring with Perigo.
“It went directly to my director at the time and then my director forwarded it to me to follow up on because I work with reunions . . . So, I have some familiarity with the audience,” said Escalante.
Escalante searched through the alumni records and narrowed the search down to Perigo by looking for his graduation year and the engraved initials. She noted that identifying the owner would have been more challenging had the ring not included his middle initial.
“It was just a matter of matching up. There was, luckily, one record that had those initials,” said Escalante.
It was just a matter of matching up. There was, luckily, one record that had those initials.
Laura Escalante, Alumni Officer
McMaster University
While it’s not uncommon for people to contact the McMaster Alumni Office to reconnect with old friends or classmates, Escalante had never encountered a case like this one in her career.
Escalante managed to have the ring returned to Perigo just in time for his 83rd birthday, 47 years after he lost it. The story of the McMaster alum's reunion with his graduation ring has made global headlines, being covered by The Washington Post and The New York Times.
Theresa Burns reflects on years coaching women’s basketball after her 607 career coaching wins, the second most by a coach in U Sport’s history
Theresa Burns started her coaching career immediately after her career as a student athlete. After four years of playing basketball for the University of Toronto, she began coaching for a university team.
“I was 24. I was coaching the university team. It was crazy. There were lots of moments of thinking, what am I doing? Talk about a steep learning curve,” said Burns.
She kicked off her career coaching the then Ryerson University's, now Toronto Metropolitan University, women’s basketball team, without any prior experience. She was encouraged to pursue the opportunity by her university head coach Michèle Bélanger. Burns detailed how her career began.
“Just towards the end of I think, May, I guess my last year she's like "you know, you should think about coaching," and I had never thought about it. And then, the following year when the Ryerson job came open, she's like, you should apply. And I was like, I'm not ready to do that, like, at all, like, not even close, but when your coach tells you to do something, you do it. It was good advice,” said Burns.
Burns said she went on to coach this team for four years before coming to McMaster in 1992. Still a young coach with little experience, Burns highlighted how McMaster’s then director of athletics and recreation, Therese Quigley, helped her to settle in.
“[I was] just really grateful that she took a chance on a young coach and I think right through those years, those early years, especially that the athletic department was very close and very tight knit and just really good people. As a young employee and a young coach, having that support and that feeling of support around you was really important and I'm really grateful for that,” said Burns.
As Burns began working with the Marauders, she started to learn even more and in the process she began to pick up better results than she had in her previous role. Her first two seasons saw Burns only pick up four wins in total, but this began to change in the 1994-1995 season.
That season saw Burns earn a total of seven wins. The next season was even more of an improvement, with the Marauders winning ten games and capturing the bronze medal in the league. After this, Burns started to win league games more often than not, solidifying her identity as a successful coach.
As Burns has progressed through her time with McMaster, she has continued improving herself as a coach. She has won five total Ontario University Athletics titles and two national level titles in her time with McMaster. She has totaled 607 total wins, making her the coach with the second highest number of women's basketball wins in U Sport history.
With this achievement, Burns sees it as a credit to all who have helped her along the way to make the women's basketball team into what it is today.
“I just wanna say Anne Marie, Ed Andrew Kelly Danny and all the assistant coaches that have been in this program. And many of those names I mentioned were like a decade, two decades with us. These are their victories, you know, you build a village, you have to have all those support networks in place and having those good people are what make our program special. Those coaches coached that long in our program because they were special and they believed in what we were doing,” said Burns.
I just wanna say Anne Marie, Ed Andrew Kelly Danny and all the assistant coaches that have been in this program. And many of those names I mentioned were like a decade, two decades with us. These are their victories.
Theresa Burns, head coach
McMaster Women's Basketball team
As the women’s basketball season continues, Burns will look to add more wins to her total. The team’s next game will take place on Nov. 15. against Nipissing University.
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Upon looking up Sioux Falls on Facebook, I saw that the lead singer’s name is Isaac Eiger, which tickled me, given that I was just about to write this piece comparing Eiger to another Isaac, Brock of Modest Mouse.
Sioux Falls’ Isaac Eiger is flexible in his singing. He can both yell and “sing pretty.” This sort of versatility was described by Built to Spill’s Doug Martsch when discussing Isaac Brock’s singing style in the 2014 documentary, Lonesome Crowded West.
https://soundcloud.com/sioux-falls/sets/rot-fornever
Songs like “San Francisco Earthquake” on Sioux Falls’ Rot Forever are reminiscent of the Lonesome Crowded West era of Modest Mouse, specifically, the riff at around the middle-mark of the song reminds me of a similar riff in “Teeth Like God’s Shoeshine.”
Not all tracks are exact shadows of Modest Mouse’s work, though. While Brock does yell on his tracks, they aren’t necessarily aggressive in the way that Sioux Falls tends to be. “In Case It Gets Lost” is a prime example of this. In fact, this particular track is post-punk-emo enough to remind me of the tone of Brand New’s album, Deja Entendu.
The album itself is rather lengthy, running for seventy-three minutes. Sioux Falls has been criticized for the length of the album by Pitchfork, but I disagree. The songs don’t drawl on for an inordinate amount of time, they play out long enough to lull the listener into falling in love with them. I think that the length is characteristic of the band’s influences. All-in-all, I enjoy the lo-fi post-punk sound of Sioux Falls, and I think this album will be putting them on the map.
Rot Forever is the album I have been waiting for from Modest Mouse since 2007’s We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank. If only I could swap out Rot Forever for Strangers to Ourselves so that we can officially forget about the latter album and let it rot forever.
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My early explorations of music started in the stacks of the Hamilton Public Library around eight years ago, where I would arbitrarily pick out a dozen CDs to bring home. Bloc Party’s debut album, Silent Alarm, was probably the single most important discovery in these trips. To this day, Bloc Party’s early discography has solidified the UK pop-rock outfit in my shortlist of all-time favourite acts.
Bloc Party has gone through a string of hiatuses and break-ups following 2008’s Intimacy, but their career has unfortunately been overshadowed by the weight of following up on their rapturously received debut. Silent Alarm’s critical acclaim has loomed over Bloc Party’s career, despite the more matured, conceptual approach on their sophomore work A Weekend in the City and a collection of gems from Intimacy.
Now, Bloc Party returns without bassist Gordan Moakes and drummer Matt Tong in their fifth studio album, Hymns. Their new album is an hour of moody electronic sounds and an especially close and personal vocal performance from front man Kele Okereke, who discusses his relationship with his Christianity, hopeless romance, and loneliness. Hymns leaves me unfortunately, and expectedly, feeling lukewarm.
Even after several listens, there are few moments that really resonated with me. With the exception of the bland but upbeat leading single “The Love Within,” the entire project sits in a mid-paced electronic drone. Okereke’s beautiful vocal work, showcasing impressive growth in both his emotional and musical range over his decade long career, saves what is otherwise a complete write-off.
For long-time fans, Hymns will feel like a husk of what the band once was. Though Kele has grown as a singer, there are very few notable moments in the song-writing, and the religious themes of the album don’t particularly amount to any form of powerful revelation. It is especially painful to summarize lead guitarist Russel Lissack’s contributions as electronic drone, given how instrumental he has been to distinguishing the group among other mid-2000s indie rock-pop groups. Lissack’s guitar and melody work almost carried the inspiration and legacy of Johnny Marr’s work with The Smiths, and much of Bloc Party’s success was founded on that work. It doesn’t help that Tong’s precision complex and precision drum work is no longer part of the equation.
This is where I think the comparisons should end. It is clear that Hymns is the introduction of a new Bloc Party, and though this album still warrants a sub-par score, it is equally apparent that there is no desire for the group to return to their original form.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V23fQ1KREcE
As much as I personally appreciate the group’s early work, it is important to recognize that comparing this new group to their previous work is a measure of a group’s history, and a measure of what has changed, and marks some deliberate artistic choices. Hymns will be panned by fans and critics alike as yet another project that’s not as good as Silent Alarm, which in my view, is an absolute cop-out.
There are solid moments in the project, and tracks like “Only He Can Heal Me,” “Different Drugs” and “Living Lux” create a potentially perfect backdrop to that summer city night where you and a particular someone go out for drive. That being said, you’re going to have to keep a finger on the skip button a little too often.
Hymns is an unspectacular, but fairly inoffensive effort, and may even have some appeal to fresh ears looking for ambient and intimate electronic beats with a great supporting voice. There were enough charming moments, enough talent, and there is enough promise in this hopefully rejuvenated group that I am still looking forward to what the new Bloc Party has in store for us.
Photo Credit: Rachel Wright
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There is nothing conventional about Robyn Rihanna Fenty. It only takes a few notes on her newest album Anti for that reminder to set in. “I got to do things my own way,” Rihanna warns in the opening song “Consideration.” This has always been her legacy. More than anything else, Rihanna has consistently come across as real. On Instagram, she positioned herself as a self-governing force with an affinity for blunts and middle fingers. This is the version of Rihanna we came to know — the one who played by her own rules and did so with endless bravado and confidence.
At the same time, she became a hit-making algorithm pumping out songs for neon lights and sweaty last calls. And we danced to it, because it was good. We spent our Friday and Saturday nights with Rihanna bumping to one of her 13 number-one singles. She became the pop star we wanted her to be because she did it brilliantly.
But until now it just didn’t completely feel like the Rihanna we had been shown. Anti, Rihanna’s eighth studio album, feels more like the artist behind the hitmaker, the authentic Rihanna.
It’s not what we expected. If her last seven albums were flashing lights and booze-soaked adventures, Anti is a solo Friday at home with a bottle of wine. It works, because it’s good. With the possible exception of “Work” featuring Drake, this album is devoid of any club bangers. Those songs were for us. Anti is for Rihanna.
Floating between soul, rock, r&b, and pop, Anti never fully commits to one genre. The grainy, blues adjacent “Higher” sounds like a drunken plea from a scrubbed Rihanna. Each note of “Desperado” drips with the fuck-you attitude she has worked to perfection. The likely hit of the album, “Kiss It Better,” shows introspection absent in past songs. But the most obvious example is Rihanna’s cover of Tame Impala’s “New Person, Same Old Mistakes.” Rihanna lends her voice to a genre not usually belonging to her, echoing instead of re-imagining the song completely.
With the exception of “Work” featuring Drake, this album is devoid of any club bangers. Those songs were for us. Anti is for Rihanna.
While always present on some level, this version of Rihanna hasn’t fully been exposed. There is a confidence in self, an underlying Bad Gal quality to the album that seems more like the yacht partying and blunts in bathrobes versions of her. These are the type of songs that couldn’t have been written for anyone else.
The Rihanna who tweeted “I’m crazy, and I don’t pretend to be anything else” seems very present singing “Tryna fix your inner issues with a bad bitch / Didn’t they tell you that I was a savage / Fuck your white horse and a carriage,” on “Needed Me.”
This album feels like a glimpse at the inner workings of Rihanna’s brain. The off-camera version. From front to back, Anti tells the story of self-exploration, growing up, and coming full circle. With the album already platinum, the understated Anti is Rihanna’s biggest statement yet.
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Solemn. Melancholy. Almost cacophonous in its softness. Daughter’s music has always had the ability to somehow silence my thoughts, but these were nonetheless what went through my mind during my first listen of Not To Disappear.
Daughter is a three-person band from England, and since their formation in 2010, they have released two albums, four EPs and three singles. Not To Disappear is their second album, released three years after 2013’s If You Leave. Despite the gap, Not To Disappear retains the eerie melancholy that has defined Daughter’s contribution to the indie folk genre.
One could not be blamed for dismissing Daughter’s music as depressing. It is. With songs characterized by loss, vulnerability and loneliness, it’s hard to come upon one that will make you want to get up and dance. If You Leave was the epitome of this notion. Featuring soft, slow tracks with words that were better off imagined as whispers had they not been sung, the album inspired a hazy, dreamy feeling framed by endless lyrical metaphors.
Where If You Leave was soft and somber even at its most emotional, Not To Disappear abandons the listless loneliness and replaces it with a more blatant desperation.
Not To Disappear is a reflection of this same idea, but Daughter has taken a few steps in a different direction. When they first announced their second album in September 2014, guitarist Igor Haefeli claimed that the band was playing with a “rockier dynamic” this time around, influenced by all the touring they’ve been doing over the year, and this attempt becomes apparent in stronger crescendos and more insistent guitar and drum lines.
Where If You Leave was soft and somber even at its most emotional, Not To Disappear abandons the listless loneliness and replaces it with a more blatant desperation. The new dynamic brings the album somewhere as gritty as the indie folk genre can allow it to go. This second album works with themes of nostalgia and memory, is more reflective than cathartic, and while previous songs were hazy and dreamy, Not To Disappear feels grounded. The music is still solemn, still hardly ever above a whisper, but somehow louder and more defined.
The album begins with “New Ways,” a song that feels a lot like being wound up tight, but instead of this feeling being drummed up into a climax then released in a song equivalent of a denouement, the feeling continues throughout the whole album, leaving the whole picture exposed and raw. The songs themselves have their own climax and denouements, defined by fluctuating tones that take you somewhere low and dark one moment before erupting in weeping tracks and higher voices, or vice versa.
The lyrics are more honest, relying less on similes and more on personal confessions. The album’s frantic tone creates a feeling of helplessness, manifesting as a plea for help in some songs and as a resigned acceptance in others.
Not To Disappear takes a bolder approach to Daughter’s music, while nonetheless retaining the same intimacy and vulnerability I’ve slowly come to appreciate. Criticisms can be made out about the band’s repetitive nature, but those fade easily behind the lucidity this album has managed to achieve. It’s mature, it’s numb, and though some songs felt like they could have easily belonged in a previous album, I got what I came for, and more, when I heard Daughter had released a new album.
Photo Credit: 4AD
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By: Sebastian Johnston-Lindsay
You need to be careful of who is within earshot when you admit to being to being a country music fan. Common reactions range from a disheartened eye roll to wild shrieks of enthusiasm and (often vague) accounts of last year’s Boots and Hearts.
I do consider myself a country music fan, but I am perpetually ill at ease with the label. I think that it’s important to be able to trace differences between vintage country music and the country music of our time, which is largely characterized by pre-packaged formulaic production and blatant promotion of light beer consumption and truck-balls.
This article is for those people who think they might want to like country music but just don’t know what might constitute country, or indeed even where country music came from. I have selected artists that I feel represent the early formation of the sound we might call country.
The first major figure in the history of country music for our sake is Waylon Jennings. Jennings was an outlaw countryman by any stretch of the imagination who is characterized as much by his larger-than-life baritone voice and hard driving country originals as by his image: he often donned black leather vests and hats in performance.
He bridged the gap between the rock music of the 1950s and the discernable country sounds we recognize today. He got his start playing in Buddy Holly’s touring band until the Holly’s infamous death on Feb. 3, 1959 in a plane crash. Waylon avoided the accident by giving his seat up to a sick band mate and opting to take a bus to the next show. In the sixties Jennings continued to work as a solo artist releasing 11 albums between 1964-1969. His initial release Waylon at JD’s (1964) contains versions of Roy Orbison’s “Crying” and Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright.”
As his career progressed, he adopted a harder edge in his music. His 1976 album Are you Ready for the Country?, named after Neil Young’s song by the same name off the album Harvest (1972), typifies Jennings’ signature sound. It includes a cover of Young’s song with a straight forward mingling of twanging guitars and heavy drums with powerful hooks.
Jennings had a close working relationship with fellow well-known “outlaws” Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash. The four men formed The Highwaymen, a supergroup that recorded and toured from the mid-1980s through until Jennings’ death in 2002.
The individual discographies of these four artists in particular represent the foundation of the genre we now recognize as country from the 1970s onward. Their willingness toward collaboration and tendency to cover and adapt each other’s songs became an important aspect of the genre.
Kris Kristofferson, is an especially interesting figure, having written numerous songs that were later made famous by other artists. Examples include “Sunday Morning Coming Down” which became an integral part of Johnny Cash’s concert performances. In addition to this, his song “Me and Bobby McGee” was covered and made popular by Janis Joplin and The Grateful Dead.
Finally we come to Townes Van Zandt. Born in Fort Worth Texas in 1944, his life was spotted with bouts of bipolar disorder aggravated by addictions to both alcohol and heroin for his entire adult life until his death at age 52. Despite this, his was prolific and vastly influential singer-songwriter. He came into the spotlight in the early 1970s along with fellow Texas singer Guy Clark, with whom he lived for a few drug-addled months in the early part of the decade.
While he is not as widely recognized as some of his peers, including those listed above, his influence on artists like Steve Earle and Bob Dylan is well documented. Throughout his life, he was notorious for shunning the spotlight and was uncomfortable with the idea of celebrity.
His debut album For the Sake of the Song (1968) contains the original recording of his most well known song “Waiting ‘Round to Die,” a burning chronicle of a life spent wandering and stealing, all the while looking for the next fix. The song ends with the revealing and prophetic lines: “I got me a friend at last, he don’t steal or cheat or drink or lie. His name’s codeine, he’s the nicest thing I’ve seen. Together we’re gonna wait around and die.”
Fans of Breaking Bad will recall Canadian folk-country band The Be Good Tanyas’ cover of “Waiting ‘Round to Die” in the episode “Bit By a Dead Bee” from the second season of the series, which brings this often covered classic to a new audience. Other key songs by Van Zandt include “Columbine” off of his self-titled 1969 album and the narrative tune “Pancho and Lefty” off The Late Great Townes Van Zandt (1972).
Townes Van Zandt is for music fans that appreciate high-poetics and simplistic production techniques. He is the Nick Drake of country music; his specter looms large in the underground folk and country scene.
I want to stress that if you find yourself in despair at the state of country music, having given the above artists a try, there is hope. Many manifestations of the original aesthetic have survived and are alive today. I urge every reader to seek out The Dinner Belles, a Hamilton outfit who released The River and the Willow this past year.
Country music is not a singular genre. It is a combination of many different styles of music that incorporate geographic, social and economic realities. This article represents nothing more than the jumping off point into a large pool of musical discovery, and maybe some Bud Light.
Header Photo Credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
In-article Credits: Henry Diltz, GAB Archive/Redferns
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Tomi Milos/ANDY Editor
56 Nights - Future
Future absolutely destroyed 2015 and it all started with 56 Nights. Following the likes of Monster and Beast Mode, 56 Nights goes about asserting Future’s exponential growth as an artist since his very public breakup with Ciara with a slew of hyper-personal tracks many do a disservice by dubbing “turn-up bangers”. Despite how heavy they go in the club, songs like “Never Gon Lose” and “March Madness” do everything but glorify narcotics. Anyone who listens closely to the lyrics will be able to perceive how Future is driven to drugs as a coping mechanism and only resorts to self-celebratory verses to mask his deep pain.
In Colour - Jamie xx
Everything about Jamie xx’s modus operandi reeks of deliberateness. His debut solo record is titled In Colour, and befittingly sports a rainbow-hued cover that also hints at what lies inside. Just like his music with his band The xx, Jamie’s efforts on In Colour are rich in emotional depth and range. The eleven-track record has a stunning array of highs and lows, as well as what is probably the song of the summer in “I Know There’s Gonna Be (Good Times)”. While that particular Young Thug collaboration is the most obvious ear-worm, the rest of the songs all reward multiple listens in which their genius subtlety comes to light.
Return To The Moon - EL VY
The National didn’t release an album this year with its members either focusing on their families, or investing energy into solo projects, but all of them have released stellar material regardless. Matt Berninger’s collaboration with Brent Knopf is arguably the most immediately gratifying of the bunch. Return To The Moon finds Berninger at his most self-aware, making fun of both himself and all the dad-rock jabs that his work gets from critics. The title track is a pitch-perfect example of the occasionally formulaic catharsis that Berninger’s band aims for, while the rest of the record decidedly distances itself from any comparisons.
The Names - Baio
Chris Baio has released solo material for some time now, but Vampire Weekend’s extended break has allowed the bassist-turned-producer to put out an extremely polished record in The Names. The quiet, intellectual that Baio comes across as in interviews marries his exuberant on-stage personality on the record. Sometimes uncomfortable, but always danceable, The Names is a heartwarming foray into electronic music by a talented musician who reveals himself to be an academic in his devotion to learning a new craft, but not in blending his knowledge into a cohesive product.
I Don’t Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside - Earl Sweatshirt
While Odd Future has ceased to be interesting, Earl has remained a brilliant outsider unhindered by the tunnel vision of his old peers. I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside sees Earl remind us how miserable he is, but in much more inventive fashion than usual. While listening to someone’s personal struggle can get grating, what makes Earl’s continued forays down that path rewarding is that he has matured much more than his former friends. Whereas Doris had a lot of misplaced anger on it, I Don’t Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside has a much grander scope and is ultimately about recovering from the bleak episodes that he recounts.
Vannessa Barnier/ANDY Reporter
RULES - Alex G
Before getting signed to Domino last year, Alex G dropped this lil album on Bandcamp. G has since put out other albums this past year, but it was something about the comfortable, lo-fi, bedroom-cooing featured on RULES that made it trump 2015’s Beach Music. It was only in 2015 that this album, along with TRICK, was mastered in a studio and made commercially available. Domino’s reissue put RULES on the map for me, and contributed to it becoming my most-played album of last year.
Homespun - Jordaan Mason
From the first seconds of Jordaan Mason’s Homespun, you can predict how intimate the album will sound in its entirety. You can hear Mason walk in and sit down on the first track as they join you in the experience that is this album. Homespun is a vulnerable piece that was made as a gift to Mason’s husband, who convinced Mason to share this album publically. This album is Mason’s attempt at an ambient-sounding album with warmth and sounds they weren’t hearing in the ambient genre. The result is a comforting record.
Carrie & Lowell - Sufjan Stevens
As a mainstream artist, the heartfelt nature of Sufjan Steven’s Carrie & Lowell was rather unexpected. This album affected a lot of listeners since high-profile musicians — for the most part — don’t use their music as an opportunity to tell hyper-personal stories about themselves. Listeners of this album often admit to crying to the songs, noting that this is a confessional album that really hit them. This is a sad album, but I’ve heard sadder albums. For what it’s worth, I overplayed Carrie & Lowell in 2015, and will continue to do so in 2016.
A New Place 2 Drown - Archy Marshall
This year, Archy Marshall moved away from his moniker, King Krule, and released an album under his own name, in partnership with his brother, Jack. A New Place 2 Drown was accompanied by a book, as well as a short film to fully explore the themes of brotherhood and art in the release. With murmuring and static, Marshall released an album that showed more sides of him than he had cared to display in his previous albums. His deep, beautiful voice vibrates out his poetic lyrics and went well with the lethargic tempo of the album.
Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress - GY!BE
Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress came out on the last day of March, when I was ending a relationship that I had hardly let begin. Luckily for me, GY!BE released this track after a long hiatus and just in time to save me from sinking into personal despair. This album is every bit reminiscent of GY!BE’s past work without being derivative. This LP is home to the usual drone-y ambience with some added gusto that makes the listening experience all the more rich. I’d recommend listening to this when you catch yourself staring out of a window.
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Regina, Saskatchewan is almost 2,600 kilometres away from McMaster. That’s the distance Marauders’ starting quarterback Asher Hastings travelled in fall 2014 to officially make Mac his home. Hastings is in his second year, double majoring in Psychology and Sociology.
Prior to arriving on campus last fall, Hastings played four years of junior football for the Regina Thunder of the Canadian Junior Football League winning a national championship and a few individual awards that garnered the attention of national press. While playing for the Thunder, Hastings attended the University of Regina for two and a half years before transferring to Mac. McMaster’s wide receivers coach Al Anonech and former Marauders quarterback Kyle Quinlan stumbled upon Hastings’ YouTube highlight tape and relayed it to Head Coach Stefan Ptaszek. Soon after that Hastings took a recruiting trip to Mac.
Having spent all of last year as Marshall Ferguson’s backup, Hastings was ready for the limelight once his time came this year. In the sixth game of the season, he broke the OUA record for most touchdown passes in a season against the Waterloo Warriors on Oct. 8.
The record breaking is number is 25 touchdown passes. After this weekend’s 31-20 victory at Laurier, Hastings pushed that figure to 29 TD passes for the season (first in the OUA) and is now one TD pass shy of breaking the CIS record held by former Saint Mary’s Huskies QB Chris Flynn. That record has been intact for 26 years. Hastings’ completion rate is a stellar 72.4 percent (also first in the OUA); he has thrown for 2,300 yards (third in the OUA) and averages 328.6 yards per game (third in the OUA). The casual observer shines the spotlight on the quarterback’s arm but Hastings knows a collective effort is a key ingredient to his success.
“The biggest thing has been the play-calling in the redzone. It’s up to the coaches and what they want to run. We have a pretty dynamic receiving core,” said Hastings. “If you want to double cover Danny Vandervoort, we’ll throw it to Max Cameron, Dan Petermann, Josh Vanderweerd, Mitch O’Connor, or Declan Cross. I think our biggest strength is being dynamic in the redzone and being able to throw the ball to anybody.”
McMaster’s depth and skill at wide receiver tells the opposing defense to pick their poison. The amount of capable receivers at Hastings’ disposal forces other teams to play Mac honest because, on any given day, it could be a different guy catching Hastings’ passes. The versatility of Mac’s passing game is a big reason Hastings is breaking records. Danny Vandervoort has the school record for most TD receptions in a season with ten. Saturday at Laurier, Dan Petermann became the proud new holder of the school record for receptions in a season with 56 catches. The previous record was 52, held by Mike Bradwell.
In order to hit these receivers Hastings needs time in the pocket. That time has been provided by the protection of his stout offensive line, which gives up a little over a sack a game.
“They’re unbelievable. All five of those guys would do anything for me on and off the field. I love those guys so much. They’re great friends, great guys in the locker room, and great football players,” said Hastings. “McMaster has a reputation for recruiting enormous offensive linemen and so there’s a real feeling of safety when I’m in the game. I owe it all to them.”
Hastings’ skill-set as a true pocket passer is a bit of a change from the past two signal callers at Mac. Quinlan and Ferguson were more dual-threat than Hastings. Hastings openly admits he’s not much of a threat outside of the pocket, but stats show he is a killer within the pocket.
“I really have a specific set of skills meaning I’m not well-rounded so I have a very specific idea of what I like to run. I think my strength is the ability to make any throw,” Hastings said. “My biggest strengths are my ability to read defenses, make good decisions with the football and make any throw on the field.”
Logically speaking, a pass-heavy QB would be more prone to throwing interceptions, but that is not the case with Hastings. His claim that reading defenses and making good decisions with the football are his strengths is validated by his almost immaculate 29:4 TD to interception ratio.
“Our philosophy is to protect the football. It’s the golden rule of playing quarterback,” Hastings said. “I have it written on a whiteboard in my room.”
No. 6 McMaster is preparing for their last game of the season against the No. 3 Western Mustangs on Oct. 24. Kickoff is scheduled for 1 p.m.
Photo Credit: Jon White/Photo Editor
