THE CANADIAN PRESS
Jamall Lee is proving to be a chip off the old block.
The six-foot-one, 215-pound running back with the Bishop’s Gaiters was Canadian university football’s top rusher this season, running for 1,464 yards. He helped the Gaiters post a 5-3 record in the Quebec Conference to finish tied for second with Concordia, Bishop’s first five-win season since 1995.
Lee’s father is Orville Lee, the former Simon Fraser running back who was the first player taken in the 1988 CFL draft by the Ottawa Rough Riders.
Ottawa finished with a dismal 2-16 record in ’88, but Lee was one of the club’s bright spots. He led the CFL in rushing with 1,075 yards — he and Normie Kwong remain the lone Canadians ever to do so — and was named the league’s top rookie and a finalist as its outstanding player.
Unfortunately, Lee was never able to match his rookie campaign. He ran for just 398 yards the following year in Ottawa before being dealt to Saskatchewan, where he served as a backup. He spent the ’92 campaign with Hamilton, running for 416 yards and a career-high five TDs, before retiring.
Jamall Lee has enjoyed a banner ’07 campaign. The native of Port Coquitlam, B.C., broke the conference rushing record of 1,050 yards set in 1969 by Larry Smith, the former Bishop’s star and CFL commissioner who’s now the president of the Montreal Alouettes.
Lee led the QUFL in rushing last year with 898 yards and finished third in the CIS behind Hec Crighton Trophy winner Daryl Stephenson of Windsor (1,140 yards) and UBC’s Chris Ciezki (1,082 yards).
But CFL teams will have to wait for Jamall Lee, who’s in his third year at Bishop’s. Of more importance to him now is the Gaiters’ division semifinal game Saturday against Concordia.