After overcoming tragedy and personal doubt, Squally Canada is playing for the teammates who were family all along

When BYU running back Squally Canada says he was in a dark place during the spring of 2017, he means it both literately and figuratively.

Literally, he was holed up, alone, in his bedroom with the lights off. No music. No friends. He only left for classes and workouts, and both of those activities were losing their appeal.

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Figuratively, Canada was questioning everything about his current state.

In football, he had reached a breaking point. Canada had committed to Boise State in high school only to decommit and eventually accept a scholarship to Washington State. Early during his freshman season in Pullman, he realized he didn’t want to work as a running back within Mike Leach’s pass-heavy system. He left that team, enrolled at BYU and sat out the 2015 regular season. But after an up-and-down 2016 season (74 carries, 315 yards, two touchdowns), he thought, maybe, he should leave this BYU commitment early, too.

But he also could count the number of credits he needed to graduate. He could be out of Provo by the following spring, but that was potentially too long to wait. He also could leave right then. He had already made it further in college than anyone else in his family. Yes, if he were to graduate, he’d be the first. But a year short of a communications degree wasn’t too bad either, right?

All he wanted was to be home with his family, which was mourning the loss of Canada’s cousin, Vinshay. He had been shot and killed in broad daylight on March 24, 2017, in California.

Vinshay had been one of the many kids who lived with the Canadas throughout Squally’s childhood. Vinshay was 13 when he moved in, just three years older than Squally, and immediately became a big brother to Canada.

Stacy and Byron Canada had always opened their doors, and the stock of children needing homes never seemed to run short. Their house was one with strict rules and consequences, and every kid — biological or not — knew the expectation to stay in line. Stacy was the one who gave the tough love and brutal honesty. Byron was softer and quieter. “Somebody had to be the tough parent,” Squally said, “and my dad is not that type of person.”

Through the years there had been nieces and nephews who lived there, football teammates who had come to stay and friends of friends who became one of Stacy and Byron’s kids. At their peak, they had 10 children (three biological) living in a five-bedroom home, and to this point they’ve raised 16 total kids.

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“It was never quiet, but it was always fun,” Stacy said.

Back then, Vinshay and Squally shared a room. On weekends, they’d sit in the closet (it had the best acoustics) and Vinshay would rap. Stacy remembered how Squally, who started writing poetry, had written his first rap in that closet with Vinshay.

In 2017, 700 miles away from the safety of that closet, Canada sat alone in his dark room.

“I withdrew myself from a lot,” Canada said. “It wasn’t just football. It was school — I didn’t want to go to class. It was my peers — I didn’t want to hang out with my friends anymore.”

Butch Pau’u’s locker was next to Canada’s then. He had watched as Canada would leave the locker room after practice with the same urgency he showed during drills on the field. After a week, Pau’u asked Canada if everything was all right. Canada said no and left.

A few more days passed, and Pau’u asked again.

“He kind of opened up about what had happened with his cousin,” Pau’u said. “I’ve been in that situation when you’re miles away from your family and you lose a loved one and all you can think about is being with your family at that time because you feel like they’re the only ones that can relate to you, and so I wanted to make sure that I was that guy for Squally.”

Pau’u had lost his grandmother a few weeks into fall camp during the 2015 season. Like Canada, he had felt alone at the time. Even though, unlike Canada, he had actual family on the team (cousin Jherremya Leuta-Douyere) going through the same loss.

Knowing that Canada didn’t have that unique kind of support on the team, he tried to tell his own story to bridge that relationship.

“I didn’t want to feel like I was imposing with what was going on with his life and trying to just overdo my role,” Pau’u said. “I just wanted to be an ear for Squally. … He started to trust me as I began to open up to him.”

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Slowly, Canada began to spend more time talking with Pau’u after practice instead of just sprinting home to his dark room.

And from California, his parents called. Byron had spiritual conversations with Squally, telling him “he has made it through the storm.” By the time spring ball began, his mom — with her tough love — told him that if he missed any moment of practice, she would be on the next flight out to Provo and he would not want to see her.

Canada took all of it — the support from teammates like Pau’u, his own faith, his mother’s tough love — and decided that he would spend the 2017 season playing for Vinshay and the rest of his family.

“I never got to that turning point of, ‘OK, I want to do these things.’ It was more of, ‘If he was here, he’d want me to do these things,’ ” Canada said. “I changed my mindset to — it’s not about me, it’s about what he would want me to do and what my family would want me to do. Every day I got up and it was tough. It was just like, ‘Do it for them. … When you play football, you bring your family happiness, you take them away from (pain), even for just an hour and a half.’ ”

Slowly, football started taking him away from his own pain, too. After touchdowns last season, he’d raise his jersey, showing a tattoo that read “RIP Shadybo” (Vinshay’s nickname).

It’s gone hurt my soul just to reminisce… Gotta understand what I represent #RestUp

— Lord Brotha (@Squally_Canada) July 16, 2018

Canada finished the season with 710 yards and six touchdowns on 120 carries. As he began looking at his academic schedule for the rest of the year, he knew he could’ve graduated that spring. But as coaching changes took place on the offensive side of the ball for the Cougars — the only returning BYU coach in 2018 was tight ends coach Steve Clark — he decided that maybe he’d stay for his final season of eligibility.

Unlike the previous season when he was playing for his family and seasons before when, he admits, he was playing for himself, Canada now saw an opportunity to be bigger than just a player on the team. He looked back at his own career — feeling overwhelmed during recruitment, feeling out of place at Washington State, going through a transfer, sitting out, feeling like he couldn’t contribute, wanting to leave again — and knew that he had a chance to play a bigger role for BYU in 2018 beyond just carrying the ball.

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“There’s a huge sense of urgency for him,” coach Kalani Sitake told The Athletic. “To see him be more active and engaged with the players has been really cool. … Just kind of bringing them up, mentoring. Now that he’s a senior, I think he wants to leave his mark on the program. But I think for him, it’s about more than just something on the field. It’s really interacting and having a mark and footprint in the system and program. It’s a genuine thing. You can’t manufacture it.”

This season, Canada has produced the kinds of games that would have given him validation a year and a half ago as he sat alone in his room. Back then, he wanted the performances he had against Arizona (98 yards, three touchdowns) and Wisconsin (118 yards, two touchdowns) to remind him that he could perform on the field. He would’ve wanted to play in this kind of Saturday night matchup with No. 11 Washington to prove himself to everyone (8:30 ET on FOX).

Last season, he wanted those games for Vinshay’s memory and for his family’s escape. And this year, though he knows they’re still watching, he mostly wants these performances for the team, for the guys in the locker room who stepped up for him when he felt like he couldn’t do so for himself.

“That was a time you didn’t see Squally around, ever. It’s not the same Squally you see now,” Pau’u said. “The guy you see now is a guy who’s very vocal all the time. A positive energy. Trying to make sure everyone knows he has their back, especially on the field. That he lets us know, even before the game starts, that even if he’s in pain, he’s going to give his 110 percent because we matter that much to him.

“We are now Squally’s family, too.”

(Top photo by Orlando Ramirez / USA TODAY Sports)