Charles "Chuck" Winters (born February 7, 1974) is a former

Canadian Football League The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...

linebacker Linebacker (LB) is a playing position in gridiron football. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and line up three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage and the defensive linemen. They are the "middle ground" of defenders, p ...

and

defensive back In gridiron football, defensive backs (DBs), also called the secondary, are the players on the defensive side of the ball who play farthest back from the line of scrimmage. They are distinguished from the other two sets of defensive players, the ...

who played for the

Toronto Argonauts The Toronto Argonauts (officially the Toronto Argonaut Football Club and colloquially known as the Argos) are a professional Canadian football team competing in the East Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL), based in Toronto, Ontario ...

Early life

Winters grew up in the tough

Herman Gardens Herman Gardens was a public housing project located in the northwest area of Detroit, Michigan. History Built in 1943, Herman Gardens, known locally as "the Gardens", had 2,144 units primarily within two-story multi-family buildings. The 129-uni ...

project of

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

. When he was in middle school, gang violence began permeating the projects. For many, adolescence is one's search for acceptance. Like his head coach and many of his teammates, Winters sought acceptance in

organized sport Sport pertains to any form of Competition, competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and Skill, skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to specta ...

s such as

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

and

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

rather than joining violent street

gangs A gang is a group or society of associates, friends or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over territory in a community and engages, either individually or collectivel ...

. Although he escaped the vicious cycle of violence himself, his 19-year-old brother Malik was murdered in a

drive-by shooting A drive-by shooting is a type of assault that usually involves the perpetrator(s) firing a weapon from within a motor vehicle and then fleeing. Drive-by shootings allow the perpetrator(s) to quickly strike their target and flee the scene before ...

in 1998. Winters hails from

's St. Martin de Porres High School (closed 2005) where he won the MHSAA State Class C Football Title twice. While at St. Martin de Porres, Winters was an All-American in two sports football and baseball. Also, Winters was drafted in the tenth round in the 1992 amateur baseball draft by the Kansas City Royals. SMDP is the same school that produced fellow CFL player

Kevin Glenn Kevin Glenn, Jr. (born June 12, 1979) is a former American professional Canadian football quarterback. He was originally signed by the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League (CFL) as an undrafted free agent in 2001. He played co ...

and former

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

player

Troy Kyles Troy Thomas Kyles (born August 13, 1968 in Lorain, Ohio) is a former professional American football wide receiver in the National Football League. He attended Howard University. He was with the New York Giants in 1990 and the San Francisco 49ers ...

of the

New York Giants The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. ...

College career

During his

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

years, Winters was a standout player at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

from 1992-1996 in football and baseball. At the end of his college career he was drafted once again in the twentieth round by the Kansas City Royals. After leaving the game of football for a brief period of time, he spent several years playing in the

Arena Football League The Arena Football League (AFL) was a professional arena football league in the United States. It was founded in 1986, but played its first official games in the 1987 season, making it the third longest-running professional football league in ...

, with the

Detroit Fury The Detroit Fury were an arena football team based in Auburn Hills, Michigan. History The team was a member of the Arena Football League from 2001 to 2004 and played at The Palace of Auburn Hills, also the home of the NBA's Detroit Pistons. The ...

and the

Las Vegas Gladiators {{Cat main, Thomas & Mack Center Paradise, Nevada University of Nevada, Las Vegas Wikipedia categories named after buildings and structures in the United States Wikipedia categories named after sports venues ...

Professional career

Winters retired from the

on December 19, 2008, after six years as a linebacker and defensive back. During his time with the Argonauts, he appeared in 82 regular-season games and eight playoff contests and was a member of the Argonauts' 2004

Grey Cup The Grey Cup (french: Coupe Grey) is both the championship game of the Canadian Football League (CFL) and the trophy awarded to the victorious team playing in the namesake championship of professional Canadian football. The game is contested be ...

-winning team. In the 2007 season, he posted a career-high 38 tackles and led the team with six forced fumbles.

Coaching career

Winters spent the 2016 season with the

Hamilton Tiger-Cats The Hamilton Tiger-Cats are a professional Canadian football team based in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. They are currently members of the East Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL). The Tiger-Cats play their home games at Tim Hortons Fiel ...

as a defensive and special teams assistant. He was hired back by the team six years later to serve as their strength and conditioning coach in

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; 2022 Sri Lankan protests, Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretari ...

References

External links

Arena Football page

Toronto Star article on Chuck Winters

Last Play Training
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Winters, Chuck 1974 births Living people Saint Martin de Porres High School (Detroit) alumni Players of American football from Detroit American emigrants to Canada American football linebackers Canadian football linebackers Michigan Wolverines football players Detroit Fury players Las Vegas Gladiators players Toronto Argonauts players Hamilton Tiger-Cats coaches Players of Canadian football from Detroit