Injured competitor returns to sport as an official

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In his third year of junior football, Richard Sansregret injured his back so badly that he quit football, and all athletics, for good. Four years later, though, the 5'9" Metis man, now 24, decided that he wanted to take up sports again. He started playing indoor soccer, and he's now looking forward to becoming one of Canada's top officials over the next few years.

Sansregret has always been a big man. As an Edmonton Huskies' defensive back, his playing weight had been 185 pounds. After the injury, his weight ballooned to 235, and he saw many other aspects of his personality slide, as well.

"A lot of my identity was wrapped up in football," said Sansregret. "And that was gone. My self-esteem was down , my grades were down." In many ways, his life was down.

But the articulate Sansregret is made of sterner stuff. At the start of 1993, he withdrew from an engineering program at the University of Alberta and went to Australia for a month and a half. Upon his return, he went to work for Steel, a men's wear company, and he was within an eyelash of being made a store manager when the parent company shut down the whole chain.

Sansregret had become a successful retailer. Since the company had left him stranded, he decided to return to school. He signed on with Integrated Technologies to fill the time till he could return to mechanical engineering at Alberta in 1994-95. He also decided to return to sports.

His sisters are successful soccer players, and Sansregret had played and officiated as a youth, so he looked to soccer for a team.

"I missed the competitiveness, the intensity," he said. "I decided to return for the competitiveness."

He didn't like working out for its own sake, and he "can't stand running." But his football had given him discipline and he firmly believes that physical sharpness equals mental sharpness. "Staying active and in shape is a matter of personal discipline," he said.

Returning from a devastating back injury to get in shape shows Sansregret's personal toughness. Many others would have lived on their pasts.

Sansregret's athletic past has some serious high points. In high school at Edmonton's Harry Ainlay Composite, his teams went 26-1-1 in his three years, two at the senior level. It was there that he met and worked under the coach who made the biggest impression on him, Brian Anderson.

The Calgary-born Sansregret went on to play for the Edmonton Huskies, but for two years he played sporadically behind two all stars, making occasional appearances. It was in one of those appearances during his second year that he first injured his back. He was out for four weeks, but was able to return before the second season ended.

In his third year with the Prairie Junior Football Conference club, Sansregret was a starter. The first game that year "was the best I ever played," he said. He led the PJFC in points. But his third game back, he hit a player with his head down and, in a second, ended his career.

He talks about the injury casually now, but it could have been much more serious. Vertebrae were moved and damaged, and it took considerable work to get to the point where Sansregret could perform things like household chores and shovelling snow. Now he's back and hoping to move into high-level competition again.

He was fast and big as a football player, and quick enough to play recreational soccer, but he wanted a bigger challenge. He found it when some soccer people remembered that he'd officiated in his early teens. He returned to refereeing this spring, and has already been appointed to some difficult games. He lined the Edmonton & District Soccer Association's Premier Major Soccer League game this summer.

"When I do something, I want to do it well," said Sansregret. "As a short-term objective, I'd like to reach my Level One within three years." (He's currently a Level Three referee.) "And I hope to get down to my playing weight before too long; I'm at 205 right now."

At a clinic for soccer fficials last week, Sansregret was following the intricacies

of the rules carefully, pointing out a few inconsistencies he'd spotted. His intensity was manifest. Soccer is one of the most demanding sports on its officials. Sansregret is obviously looking forward to taking on all corners this indoor season.