By: Kaja Antic, Sports Writer
For over 50 years, one of SFU’s shining athletic qualities was the school football team. For much of its history it was the only Canadian university to play in American gridiron football competition. That all came to a grinding halt on April 4, 2023, when SFU president Joy Johnson announced SFU’s football team would become a relic of the school’s past.
The team was one of SFU’s inaugural athletic programs, starting play in 1965, the year the school opened. This was the second collegiate football program in BC, and the only to compete with American rules over the Canadian version. For the first 37 years of its existence, SFU participated in National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) competition, primarily playing against American opponents.
From 1965 until 2001, SFU played 337 games in the NAIA, with a 0.439 win percentage. The NAIA era was when SFU arguably had its most success, as the program earned their only undefeated season while playing in the American competition in 1970. The team also had 12 seasons out of 37 with winning records — a feat they only achieved twice after leaving the NAIA.
While the team spent a lot of their time playing American organizations, 1967 saw the first edition of the Shrum Bowl — the cross-town rivalry between SFU and BC’s only other collegiate football program, the UBC Thunderbirds. SFU holds the advantage in the all-time record with 17 wins to UBC’s 16, with one tie in 1969.
In 2002, SFU left NAIA competition to join Canadian Inter-University Sport, now known as USports. With this move, SFU switched its play to the Canadian rules of football, along with primarily competing against Canadian schools for the first time in program history.
SFU’s time in Canadian competition was a roller coaster of playoff participation matched with winless years. The team’s 2003 season was arguably the most successful in program history from an awards standpoint, as SFU won the Hardy Trophy — earned by the champion of the Canada West conference — by defeating the University of Alberta Golden Bears. The only other time the team earned a postseason appearance — along with a winning record — was the 2008 campaign, when SFU lost in the Hardy Cup matchup for the Canada West championship trophy to the University of Calgary Dinos.
The team’s time in Canadian competition was also the first time the program went winless for multiple consecutive years. In the three seasons between October 23, 2004 and August 23, 2008, SFU’s football team did not win a single game out of 25 attempts. In eight years of Canadian competition, SFU had a 0.279 win percentage, with one Hardy Trophy to show for it.
When SFU was granted NCAA Division II eligibility for 2010–11, the football program joined the Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC), returning to American competition and American football rules. The team had 12 seasons in the NCAA until the program’s cancellation, in which they managed 18 wins and 101 losses.
“The team’s 2003 season was arguably the most successful in program history from an awards standpoint, as SFU made it through to winning the Hardy Trophy — earned by the champion of the Canada West conference — by defeating the University of Alberta Golden Bears.”
The program also had their second years-long losing streak while in GNAC competition, after going winless from October 18, 2014 to September 1, 2018. Even then, the 2018 win was against a non-conference opponent, meaning SFU did not claim a victory against a GNAC program until over a year later on October 19, 2019 — almost five years to the day since their last GNAC victory.
The 2020 season was cancelled due to COVID-19, and when GNAC football resumed in 2021, there were only three schools left to participate in the conference competition — SFU, Central Washington, and Western Oregon. The 2021 campaign saw SFU earn only one win, though the team made history in another aspect, with kicker Kristie Elliott becoming the first Canadian woman to play and score in an NCAA football game. When the GNAC stopped sponsoring football at the conclusion of the 2021 season, the three football programs moved to the Texas-based Lone Star Conference (LSC) as football-only affiliate members.
The first — and only — season SFU used the Red Leafs moniker saw the team earn just one win through 10 games in 2022. Out of the nine played against LSC competition, SFU would net its singular win hosting West Texas A&M for what would evidently be its last-ever conference match. The Red Leafs played their final game on December 2, 2022, in a BC Lions-backed revival of the Shrum Bowl, in which UBC bested the Burnaby Mountain hosts 18–17.
Once again, the Red Leafs were meant to compete in the LSC for the 2023 campaign. The February 1, 2023 announcement when SFU revealed the school would not be offered an LSC affiliate agreement past the 2023–24 season still mentioned the then-upcoming 2023 season, even while the team was without a conference for the prospective years following. UBC was meant to host the 35th Shrum Bowl that December, a historic marker for the longtime rivalry.
On April 4, 2023, all of that hope was dashed.
Varsity football’s time on Burnaby Mountain had run out, the Red Leafs falling without a competition to play in. After 57 seasons of triumphs and tribulations, SFU football was coming to an unceremonious end.
There was, and still is, a push to revive and revitalize this historic program, though none without significant barriers. Returning to USports or NAIA competition would create issues due to SFU’s NCAA affiliation, and the NCAA regulations wouldn’t allow for the team to switch to Division I or Division III.
After 524 games played, SFU had notched 185 wins across three different collegiate divisions, two different sets of gridiron rules, and nearly six decades. Though the program has officially come to a close, its near-60 year legacy cannot be forgotten in SFU’s athletic history. Even though the program has come to a tumultuous end, it’s still an important marker on SFU’s overall athletics history. SFU was the only Canadian team playing American rules against the southern country built on college football, putting Burnaby Mountain on the map for kilometres, or miles, to see.
