Marc Parenteau, Stittsville, ON

Born in Sherbrooke (QC), I grew up in this French speaking community until the age of 12 at which point my father decided it would be best for our family & his business to move to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, which meant I had to learn English in under 3 months. Moving from a small French city to a massive English urban center like Ft. Lauderdale was not easy at first but I believe those early challenges helped me to learn how to be able to adjust to any environments & changes that I would be facing during the rest of my life. During my high school years, I excelled in the classroom & developed into a very good athlete which resulted in many athletic scholarship offers from major U.S. colleges and universities. I accepted a football scholarship to Boston College because it was (and still is) one of the best academic schools in all of North America & the football team was on the rise. Not knowing if professional football would be in the cards for me after college, I studied hard & graduated with a bachelors degree in business administration & finance. I also excelled on the field, playing all four years & twice being named an All-Star member in my conference (Big East), no small task if I may add.
After graduation, I decided not to pursue a football career even though many opportunities were available to me both in the US & in Canada. I worked for the family business for two years as an office manager & coached the offensive line at Bishop’s University in Lennoxville (QC) which is where I realized I still had the "itch" to play. I eventually came back to football & played in over 150 games over 9 fun filled years with Ottawa, Winnipeg, Saskatchewan, Toronto & I was fortunate enough to win 2 Grey Cups (2007 & 2012). I also scored a touchdown in the 2010 Grey Cup & remain the only Offensive Linemen to ever score a touchdown in Grey Cup History (if you are curious you can YouTube the play haha).