Rugby player passes on bragging rights
By Jorge Antonio Vallejos
TORONTO – Noah Johnston-Brochmann may have earned some bragging rights on the rugby field. But the Sagamok Anishinawbek citizen prefers to keep things humble.
“I don’t really like bragging,” says the 16-year-old, who plays wing on the starting line for three different rugby teams. He helped the Toronto Nomads go undefeated in 2013, and earned a Canadian Championship with Team Ontario in 2012.
“A year ago I tried to really follow the Seven Grandfather teachings day by day. It’s tough…I can see in myself I’m getting better, in my patience, in the way I am,” says Johnston-Brochmann who now leads sharing circles at Park Street Collegiate Institute in his hometown of Orillia.
Johnston-Brochmann picked up rugby through friends two years ago.
“It seemed like football but much better,” he says. “The guy that can do the most damage is the wing.”
His passion, athleticism, and discipline impressed his coach and earned him the notice of several teams. Practising four times a week Johnston-Brochmann was scouted by Team Ontario, helping them win a national championship and earning him a spot to compete in Australia in 2014.
There is a price to pay for being a rugby star.
“I’ve fractured lots of bones,” he says, noting that it took a broken collarbone to sideline him for a month.
“I do it for the team, the brotherhood of it,” says Johnston-Brochmann. “I look around at my team and see how they need me and I need them. We all depend on each other.”
As the only First Nations person on all three of his teams – and possibly in all the leagues where he competes – Johnston-Brochmann sees Rugby as more than just a sport with travel opportunities.
“Everywhere I go I try educate people on Native culture. There’s so much stereotypes out there like ‘we drink all the time’, ‘we abuse women’ — all that stuff. I want to show them the other side ‘cause there’s more to us than that. They only see a bit of us. They don’t know much so I try to educate them on that.”
With aspirations to play for Team Canada and in professional leagues in Europe, Johnston-Brochmann remembers his roots.
He was born in Six Nations and raised in Toronto.
“I feel like I bring pride to Sagamok. I want to make them proud and keep them happy.” He also considers introducing his sport in his home community on the north shore of Lake Huron.
“I would like to do that one day. That would be nice.”