Pursuit is sports feature series highlighting athletes, coaches, and staff and significant sporting events from North Bay and the surrounding area.
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When he’s not protecting national airspace, he’s threatening the pass defense with his aerial attacks on the gridiron. Jordan Heather has been one of the key cogs of what has been a tremendous season for the North Bay Bulldogs senior team, playing in the National Football Conference.
On game day, he is the team's quarterback, but during work hours he is an Aerospace Control Officer at 22 Wing/CFB North Bay.
“I’m an Air Battle Manager,” says Heather. “My day-to-day job is on the NORAD mission. We're doing practice scrambles, intercepting planes for training, and we have 24/7 operations where the main mission is to defend the skies and keep watch for any disaster that could happen. Right now, I’m a senior director managing our weapons section. I’m not directly talking to the plane, I manage the controllers who talk to the planes and give them direction.”
All season long, Heather had been directing the team's offense as the Bulldogs enjoyed a tremendous season, going to the semifinals before suffering a 28-7 loss against the GTA All-Stars.
“We’ve been able to put together a good team here and we’ve had some big wins over the course of the season,” said Heather, prior to this past weekend's playoff game, adding, “We had a big quarterfinal win over Ottawa at the end of July. The GTA All-Stars have won the league six years in a row.”
Heather has been a true gem for the Bulldogs to find for their team as he brought with him an impressive resume. He won the 2013-14 Hec Crighton Trophy, as the country's top football player at the CIS level, playing for Bishop’s University. Heather shattered one of the most prestigious single-season records in CIS football, tallying 3,132 passing yards in eight league games (an average of 391.5 a game), surpassing the mark of 3,047.
“I started playing football when I was nine years old and I’ve always played quarterback. My dad got me started on knowing how to throw a football at that age,” says Heather.
“I went to Oromocto High School in Gagetown, New Brunswick, my dad was in the military and I went to a bunch of football camps growing up, including some in the USA. My high school Offensive Coordinator knew people on the coaching staff at Bishop’s University (in Sherbrooke, Québec) and he introduced me to them and after going to some camps I ended up there.”
Heather says the personal accolades are something he is proud of, but adds, “I never ended up winning a championship while I was in university. You always play to be part of a team that wins it all, but individual success was something I had to work for. I didn’t start my first year playing there until my fourth year of school. I had to develop my body, I had to learn how to read defenses, and do the things they needed me to do at the CIS level. When I finally got the opportunity to play, I made the most of it and that’s when I won the award and it was super satisfying to have that happen. It wasn’t just me though, we had a phenomenal team around me that year and they are the ones that made it possible.”
Heather joined the military in 2018 and was posted to North Bay in 2020 and football was seemingly in the rear-view mirror.
“I stopped playing football in 2017. I played when I was in Calgary and I knew North Bay had a team, but it wasn’t really on my radar to play at this competitive level again,” he says. “I was playing in the local flag football league which is run by the North Bay Bulldogs and I had a really good time and my team won the flag football championship and that got the spark going to want to play again.”
With a young child at home and another on the way, Heather says balancing out work, dad life, and playing competitive football was tough at times.
“My wife was pregnant at the beginning of the season, but we just welcomed our second child and I’m off work now, so I’m at home being a dad and then getting to focus on football. But the last month you could feel the burnout after doing shift work and then coming home and doing everything you need to do as a dad and a husband and then giving what I can to the team. But my wife has been super supportive of me playing and that has really made it easier and I’m thankful for that.”
Heather says he’s also thankful for having the Bulldogs and the NFC to play in.
“I always tell people when they ask about it, that it is my favourite level of football that I’ve ever played,” says Heather.
“With university football, the calibre is better with more athletes and younger guys, but I love that there is such a range of players in this league. We have some guys that have never played before. We have someone who just moved here from South Africa who is a rugby player and he’s starting for us now. We have guys who never got a shot to play at the university level. One of our receivers, Jacob Steringa, is a university-calibre receiver who has slipped through the cracks and he deserves the opportunity to play somewhere at a university. I love that there is that big of a range of guys in our league.”
He says he hopes that message encourages more people to come and check out Bulldogs football.
“This is open to anybody from 17 to 50, really there are no age limits, and we encourage anyone who has played football, or who has an interest in playing football, to come out and see what we’re all about as we’re always interested in recruiting more players.”
