A year ago, the Dakota Lancers football team made history, winning their first ANAVETS Bowl, 28-7 over Grant Park. The "fastest football team" that high school head coach and Bisons alum Mitch Harrison has been around "regardless of level," the squad was filled with incredible student-athletes on both sides of the ball.
 
Amongst the group, senior linebacker Asun Ducharme stood out.
 
The team's vocal and emotional leader plays the game with his heart on his sleeve. He earned a reputation as one of the hardest hitters in the class of 2024, and with this in mind, it's easy to see why the was tied for the school lead in solo tackles, with 16.
 
Immediately after winning the 2023 ANAVETS Bowl, Ducharme delivered a powerful message which put his life – and why he plays football with such intensity – into perspective.  
 
"I love this game more than my own life. I was born in Thompson. I'm going to be completely honest, I grew up in poverty. Before I was in third grade I was in like eight different schools. I lived in South Indian Lake where I'm from, my reserve. I lived everywhere. I lived a crazy life. I don't know how I ended up on this team [. . . ] This game has changed my life," he said at the time, visibly emotional.
 
"I can be something. I'm grateful for it every day. I was that little res kid too. I know what it's like to not have water and heat in your own house. I know what it's like to lose people to addiction, to murder to crime, I know what that's like and I'm trying to be the one who makes it out."
 

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Stuck in a cycle
Born of Métis-Cree heritage, Ducharme spent the first nine years of his life, on and off, on O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation – a community of 1839 people – in South Indian Lake, Manitoba. He learned the value of community, and empathy at a young age.
 
"Obviously I learned a lot about my culture living out there. I was hunting as a kid, fishing as a kid, and learning a lot about my people. I also learned how to work with a lot of different groups of people. There are a lot of different types of people living on a reserve, and I also really like the family atmosphere that it brought," he said.
 
"It's a small community, and everyone knows each other very well. If I ever needed a ride somewhere, I could put my hand out and completely trust whoever is driving me there. It's probably my uncle or my aunt. The big thing about reserves too, is it's kind of like a family across everywhere. Everyone cares about each other."
 
Indigenous peoples are resilient. Ducharme witnessed this on a daily basis growing up. Like many others in their community and across the country, his family has felt the pain of lateral violence, and Intergenerational trauma caused by residential schools.
 
Residential schools operated in Canada for more than 160 years, with upwards of 150,000 children passing through their doors. Every province and territory, with the exception of Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and New Brunswick, was home to the federally funded, church-run schools. The last school closed in Saskatchewan in 1996.
 
The Canadian government and Canada's churches built the residential school system as a means to solve the "Indian question" in Canada. Countless Indigenous people were taken from their communities and stripped of their culture, and many never made it home.
 
Those that did had to re-discover what it meant to be Indigenous, and to have pride in their culture without truly knowing what that meant.
 
"My great grandfather went to residential schools, and my Kôhkom (grandmother) went to residential schools as well. You can see where the pain trickles down a lot. My mom and her mom and her mom before her all had their own issues. You can see how it slowly improves over time, but you also see people who get stuck in this cycle of addiction," said Ducharme.
 
"Because of residential schools, a lot of Indigenous people don't really know how to love their children as much. It's getting better, but I've noticed that within my family. It's something we've struggled with, but we're also getting better at it. You can see the effect it's had. It's had an effect on me and how I view the world. I was around all kinds of addiction and that is the direct effect of residential schools and colonization."
 
This past August, the community of O-Pipon-Na-Piwin declared a state of emergency following a string of violent attacks, which led to a community-wide overnight lock down. A state of emergency was also called the prior March, resulting from addiction and mental health-related struggles.
 
Ducharme has seen the pain of loss firsthand. When he was seven, his uncle, his "super man" who "embodied everything he wanted for himself" passed away.
 
It altered Ducharme's "journey in life."
 
"I remember realizing that what I was seeing around me wasn't normal. It's not normal to go to five, six funerals a year. Your friends are dying at 12, 13 years old by suicide. All that stuff. I realized that wasn't normal that day. From that day forward I told myself that I was going to find something, and I was going to try so hard to be good at it, so that I could make something of myself."


'I just want to be able to be a role model for kids that were like me growing up'
That "something" turned out to be football.
 
From a young age, it was clear Ducharme was athletic. He would always win the community track meets, and when he was exercising, he felt at peace. He always wanted to play sports growing up, but couldn't afford it.
 
When he was 12, everything changed.
 
His mom was able to pay for him to play soccer, where he eventually met Boyd Barrett. A former defensive back for the Manitoba Bisons football team, who also played in the CFL, Barrett saw a future in football for Ducharme.
 
"I was a big, aggressive kid. I loved being physical with people and I kept getting kicked out of games. My coach Boyd Barrett was a Bombers alum and he's like you should start playing football. Everyone is telling me they could see a future with me playing football. I had coaches that would come up to my mom and I and be like hey, make sure your son stays on the right path. Football is something he could really make money from some day and help your family."
 
Channeling his past, Ducharme quickly became one of the province's hardest hitting, and most sought after linebackers. He helped Dakota advance to the ANAVETS Bowl in grade 11 and 12, winning it all in the latter.
 

His mom did whatever was needed to support her son, including waking him up at five in the morning to go to training. She would drive him across the city to go work out and made sure he had enough food in his system to be a high-level athlete. The results on the field spoke for themselves.
 
"When I started playing football I didn't have a lot of money or anything, but any time I was on the field, if I wanted it, I wanted it more than anyone else I was playing against. Even if they had more money, I was running into them full speed over and over again. I knew I wanted it so bad. My motivation comes from the way that I grew up. I grew up around a lot of violence and a lot of poverty, and I wanted nothing more than to escape that life. When I started playing football, it was therapeutic for me. It gave me an outlet for my aggression."
 
As Ducharme's profile rose, so did his commitment to the game. He understood that every time he strapped on the pads, he was playing for something much bigger than himself.
 
"I just want to be able to be a role model for kids that were like me growing up. I never had an Indigenous role model that was playing football or playing sports that I knew. When people started telling me that I could have the opportunity to be that role model, I really locked in," he said.
 
"Football was something I was going to put my heart and my soul into, because maybe one day there could be a kid that's going down a bad path like I was going down, and see me, and think I could be like him. That really pushed me to be focused on football."

Ducharme's talents earned him a scholarship to go to university, and he chose Manitoba for 2024. His long-term goal is to play pro, and to give back to his community. It's a big deal that he's made it to the U SPORTS level, but the rookie linebacker hasn't lost sight of the bigger picture.
 

"It's a lot bigger than sport. I never really grew up having a lot of positive Indigenous role models. For me to be a person someone can see, and be like I want to be like him, that's something that's really important to me. It's a community that needs leaders and athletes," he said, holding back tears.
 
"It's something I feel like I carry into my game. I know there are people looking at me who I don't know, that are hoping I do something with this. People really want me to make it. Every time I'm on the field and I'm training or I'm practicing, I'm trying my hardest. I want people to have someone to look up to. That's something I've always wanted to do, but that I never really thought I could do. I'm very grateful to be here and I'm going to do everything I can to be the best that I can be."