Randy Ambrosie says he wants quarterback Johnny Manziel to succeed in the CFL.
The commissioner talked about the 2012 Heisman Trophy winner with a Vancouver radio station earlier this week.
“I’m rooting for Johnny Manziel. I wouldn’t hesitate to say that but as much as I’m rooting for him as an athlete I’m rooting for him as a person. That he reaches his full potential as a human being.”
The deadline for the ongoing Manziel approval process has been extended a few times and the latest one pushed it into January.
“The process continues and I think that’s the important word. We are not going to short circuit any important steps in this. Look in so many ways what we want to do is we want to do right by Johnny, clearly, he is a phenomenal there is a lot of capabilities there. But with some of the things that have happened in his life, we would want to bring him in if he was ready for us,” commissioner Randy Ambrosie said on Sportsnet 650 in Vancouver.
“And we’d obviously want to say to whichever market he happened to be hanging his hat in, we’d want the people of that community to know that we’ve done our very best to enlist the support of professionals, experts in the field to make sure that if he joins he’s ready to be not just a great pro football player but a great contributor to the community. So the process continues and I just keep reminding everyone who is involved in this that we won’t short circuit that at all, that’s got to play out. If and when our experts advise us that he’s ready obviously we’ll be excited to make that announcement.”
Ambrosie knows Manziel is talented from a football perspective, but he wants the 25-year-old to be a model citizen.
“Every great player that we bring into this league of ours and we’ve had so many over the years and we have so many now, they’re all professionals, they all do special things to make our league better. But I think we can all acknowledge that it’s not just important to be great athletes on the field but they have to be great people off. And they’ve gotta contribute to our communities. That’s part of the Canadian culture.”
