By: Hannah Kazemi, Staff Writer

We often hear about SFU athletes who have stepped up or had a particularly impressive season, but what happens to those athletes when they graduate and leave SFU? The Peak speaks with SFU football alumni to find out how and why they continue to support SFU’s young student athletes 30–35 years after their time with the program. 

Jamie Clayton, current secretary of the SFU Football Alumni Society, played on the SFU football team from 1988–91 as a linebacker.

While Clayton was happy to have “beat UBC three years out of four” during his time on the SFU football team, what he most takes away from his alma mater is what he received after his time with the program: a degree. “If it wasn’t for football, I wouldn’t have gone to SFU,” Clayton said. 

Clayton has continued to be involved with SFU football since he graduated. “I always tell the guys if I could write a big cheque I would, but I can’t. I don’t have the financial means to do that,” he joked. “So what I do is put my time in supporting the student athletes at SFU. I feel it’s made a huge difference in my life, and I think that for many students that are athletes at a university, it makes a big difference in their life.” 

Clayton says one of those difference makers is a student’s bond to SFU, which he believes is largely lacking otherwise. “I think [SFU] needs a lot more of connecting students to the university in a way that creates a really strong bond, so that students like myself will give back to the school in many different ways.”

One of the many ways alumni give back to fellow athletes is through raising money for scholarships. “Athletics is a representation of SFU, just like the science department, [and] the business department,” Clayton said. “You want to attract the best of the best if you can. You can’t just say ‘come and spend your money here,’ right? There has to be some incentive.”

But what’s the incentive for alumni to support a football program that made up just a sliver of their life? Clayton says it’s the types of bonds that only football can create. “I don’t know if every sport is like this, [but] football is for sure. You just build a very close-knit group of people, and you never really forget the time that you had together — the good times and the bad,” he says. “We all wear our SFU red with pride.”