Metchie, Luketa lead Canadian contingent in 2022 NFL Draft

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John Metchie and Jesse Luketa are both certain to hear their names called this week at the NFL Draft.

Besides being highly decorated players at two of the most prestigious college programs in NCAA football – Alabama and Penn State, respectively – the two have another connection.

They were coached in high school, coincidentally, by brothers.

John Root, the head football coach of Saint James School in Maryland, received a visit in August of 2014 from a young receiver from Brampton, Ont. He arrived with his parents, eager to enroll and chase his football dreams.

Metchie had just turned 14, but already knew what he wanted. Growing up in Brampton, he had followed his three older brothers into football and wanted to take things to a higher level by enrolling in high school in the U.S.

“That was my second year at Saint James, so we were looking for kids who wanted to be ballplayers and were high-academic, high-character kids,” recalled John Root. “Here was a kid who was smart, a great athlete and the kind of player you want to surround yourself with when you are building a program. We were excited to have him, we just didn’t know how good he was going to be.”

Roughly a year after Metchie got to Maryland, John Root’s brother, Jeff, was the beneficiary of a young Canadian chasing his own football dream.

Jeff is the head coach at Mercyhurst Prep in Erie, Pa. During the summer of 2015, he got a visit from a young defender from Ottawa who was looking for an opportunity to play in the U.S.

Luketa had grown up as the youngest of seven children to a single mother. He never let economic challenges dash his plans, writing to prep schools all over the U.S. in search of a path that would lead him to