Champ Tackles Comeback

September 08, 2009

Greg Sakaki, Nanaimo News Bulletin

Mark De Swart's first stint with the V.I. Raiders ended in glorious victory at Caledonia Park. Now he'll do his part to try to ensure his second stint ends the same way.

The 22-year-old linebacker made a surprise return to the Raiders two weeks ago. After just a week of practice with the team, he slotted back into his old starting weak-side linebacker spot Aug. 29 against the Victoria Rebels and had a monster game with five solo tackles and a forced fumble.

The six-foot, 205 pounder played the last two seasons with the University of Calgary Dinos, but didn't get an opportunity there to be the sort of impact player Raiders fans remember from the 2006 Canadian Junior Football League championship squad.

His last season in Calgary was a "rough year," De Swart said. He got hurt and moved around on the defence, and this year didn't seem to hold any more promise. So De Swart called up Raiders coach Matthew "Snoop" Blokker and essentially asked for his old job back.

"I had a lot of fun here in '06 so I decided to come back and relieve some stress, have a good time," De Swart said. "The Raiders are a good family, too, you feel like you're part of something here."

The 2009 Raiders aren't the same blue-collar, underdog team he remembers from 2006, but they've got tremendous potential.

"I think we need to work a little bit harder [and] maybe we could be a little bit more humble," he said. "But we're definitely a championship-bound team this year."

Their chances are certainly better with one more playmaker in a linebacking corps that was already lights-out.

"For a guy that hadn't played football since May, [De Swart] was pretty impressive," Blokker said.

"He's only going to get better - in a couple weeks he's going to be absolutely destroying it."