“That’s probably the coolest feeling I’ve ever had”

Justin Sorensen is no stranger to big games.

For five years he was prepared in one of college football’s toughest environments —  the SEC — as a member of the South Carolina Gamecocks. 

“I loved South Carolina,” he says. “It was very friendly and everybody takes care of you. It was a very homey culture.”

The player from a B.C. town of 12,000 played in one of the biggest college football conferences in America.

“I was lucky,” he says. “My parents basically paid for me to get out. They paid for a whole bunch of football camps in the states and across Canada.”

His parents also sent game tape to colleges across North America. It worked. Fresh out of high school, Sorensen had a full ride scholarship to play football at South Carolina University.

“It was crazy. I’m from a small little beach town in Vancouver Island. To go out right into the deep south when I was 17-18 (years old) was pretty amazing,” Sorensen says.

“I remember the first day I got down there it was in July and it was like 118 degrees on the heat index and the team was outside doing training. I went out and watched, standing in the shade, and I was completely soaking wet. I wondered, what did I get myself into?”

The move had a major impact on lineman’s career. The competition he went up against on a weekly basis was among the highest the collegiate level had to offer.

“His coaching staff included two of the winningest Division I coaches in Lou Holtz (249 wins) and Steve Spurrier (227).

After spending a year under Holtz as a redshirt, a then 20-year-old Sorensen made his debut in the Gamecocks starting lineup under Spurrier in 2006,  who inserted him at right tackle halfway through a game against Vanderbilt. It was a spot the BC native would not relinquish for the final 31 games of his college career.

“Spurrier prepared guys for the pros and life afterwards. He would try and educate you on life after college football to give you a jump start on that,” he says.

Sorensen credits Spurrier as one of the figures who made him the player he is today.

In addition to legendary coaches, Sorensen’s college career also gave him big game experience.

“87,000 people in the stadium and 150,000 people outside tailgating. The city shuts down and everybody is there to party for the game,” he says.

“I remember the first game I dressed for as a rookie. It was the second game of the season against Georgia and I’d only played in front of, at most, 500 people before,” he says. “I remember running out to 2001 A Space Odyssey. The whole stadium is screaming and jumping and you can just feel it vibrating up through the grass.”

“That’s probably the coolest feeling I’ve ever had in my entire life.”

In his time with the Gamecocks, Sorensen would play in three bowl games, winning one. He left college a year after being selected in the first round of the 2010 CFL Draft by his hometown BC Lions.

“It was awesome to be back at home, but to be honest, when I went down to college all my family moved to Alberta,” he says. “So even though I went back to BC, it wasn’t really home.”

The move to Edmonton when he signed as a free agent in February 2014 was welcomed. Sorensen gets to be closer to his family.

So will papa Sorensen be at the next home game?

“Now, my dad never misses a game.”