Not many professional athletes get the chance to play where they grew up, performing in front of friends and family.
Winnipeg Blue Bombers linebacker Thomas Miles is one of the lucky ones.
Born in Winnipeg in 1992, Miles has spent the majority of his life in the city, and after three seasons in Toronto is very happy to be donning the Blue and Gold this season.
“It’s a dream come true. There have been season tickets in the family for upwards of 40 years,” Miles said.
“It’s not just special for me, but for a lot of the members of my family. I know it was real tough for them to pretend to cheer for Toronto the last couple years, so now there are no internal struggles going on.”
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As a kid, Miles played football, soccer and hockey. He was a defenceman, a good one too, and a bit of a bruiser.
“Hockey was number one up until grade nine. I played AAA, tried out with the Vancouver Giants of the WHL. That was a rookie camp tryout. They basically said, ‘Go home, play AAA, quit football, and we’ll keep you around.’ But I wasn’t ready to give up football at the time, and looks like I made the right call.”
Miles made a compromise, playing AA hockey but mainly focusing on football.
“I played community club for the Crescentwood Grizzlies until Grade 9, then started with the Churchill Bulldogs and played out my high school career there. I also played under-17 and under-19 provincially in the summer. I had a ton of great coaches along the way that helped me out.”
Among the highlights of his football experience is a provincial championship in 2008, beating St. Paul’s for the title (and, he said half-jokingly, rubbing it in the faces of his friends that went there). Like many Winnipeg high school standouts, he committed to the University of Manitoba, but his time as a Bison wasn’t the smoothest.
“When things go according to plan, the best provincial players become the best university players become the professional football players. In high school that was the path I was hoping I would one day take. I didn’t have a great university career, had some injury issues early on and then…I don’t know…just lost my way a little bit.”
Miles had to go through the regional combine to get to the national combine ahead of the 2014 CFL draft, when he was chosen in the 4th round by the Argonauts.
“It was funny, I had some family and friends over and were watching the draft on the live stream when the stream cut out. So I was refreshing the draft tracker and saw my name pop up and, like, two other picks. I was like, ‘Guys, I just got drafted!’ It was a lot of fun.”
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Now he’s back home, playing for the team he grew up watching. He didn’t have a Bombers idol growing up, but he admitted that he wanted to play like Barrin Simpson, who played linebacker for the club from 2006 to 2009. Who knows, maybe some kid playing youth football in Winnipeg right now will grow up to play for the Bombers and will look back, saying he modeled his game after Thomas Miles.
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