Ed Willes
The Province

They might be the oddest couple since Julia Roberts and Lyle Lovett.

Korey Banks is from Boynton Beach, a small oceanside town on Florida's Atlantic Coast located about 60 miles north of Miami. He is, by all accounts, a bundle of nervous energy; always talking, always fidgeting, always moving.

“That's way off,” says Banks.

“That's him,” says Dante Marsh, his colleague in the Lions' secondary.

Marsh, for his part, is from Oakland which is on the other side of the continent and isn't exactly a beach community. Marsh is stoic. He is calm and thoughtful and, by his own admission, guarded around people.

“My wife says I have a lot of friends,” he reports. “I have a lot of associates. I have a small group of people I consider real friends.”

“Don't be fooled by him,” says Banks. “He's a politician.”

So they are different in the way night is different to day. But, despite that, and despite playing positions which carry the life expectancy of a fruit fly, they've forged a personal relationship which transcends their professional one. They fight. They bicker. But in the game's big things, and life's bigger things, they know they have each other's backs.

Very few people get wealthy in the CFL. But Banks and Marsh have found something money can't buy.

“Honestly, they argue like a married couple,” says Lions DB Ryan Phillips. “Then they make up and they're inseparable again. That's just them and it's been like that ever since they started playing together.”

“It's a thing we have,” says Marsh. “When (Banks) came from Ottawa, we just instantly clicked. I call him my brother. For whatever reason, we're that tight.”

The Lions' answer to Felix and Oscar is now finishing off their sixth season in the Leos' secondary and, for the bulk of that time, they've played beside each other on the short side of the field: Marsh on the corner, Banks at halfback.

They've also played their positions as well as anyone in the Canadian game and Marsh, in particular, is having one of his best seasons as a Lion in 2011. There are a number of reasons for the team's astonishing turnaround this year – they have a chance to clinch the Western Division tomorrow night at home against Montreal after starting the year 0-5 – but one of the most under-appreciated is the play of the secondary which underwent major changes a month into the season.

One of those changes saw Banks return to his place beside Marsh.

“Fine wine,” says Marsh who, like Banks, is 32. “We talk every play but we don't have to talk. He knows what I'm going to do and I know what he's going to do.”

“I can't think of anyone else who's been around as long as we've been together,” says Phillips, himself a seven-year Lion vet. “That says something.”

It just doesn't say it all.

Marsh acknowledges that the friendship is an outgrowth of the professional relationship but that still doesn't explain everything that's happened between the two men. A couple of years ago, both moved to Atlanta where they now live 15 minutes apart. They train together. They've made real-estate investments together. Their families are close. Marsh might not have a lot of close friends but he doesn't have to look far to find one.

Along the way they've enjoyed successes. Banks is a six-time divisional All-Star and all-CFL three times. Marsh is a two-time divisional All-Star and was all-CFL in '08. They won a Grey Cup in '06, their first year together. They also know the clock is running on their careers and they want another ring badly.

But they also have the game in perspective.

In January of 2010, the Banks' family lost their three-year-old son Khamari to cancer. Korey now says it was his role to be strong - “the rock” - for the family but when the pain became too much to bear, he also knew where to turn.

Banks came to question a number of things during his son's illness. He never had to question Marsh's friendship.

“I said this is one of my brothers,” says Marsh. “Whatever he needed I was there for him.”

“I'm not scared of getting older,” said Banks. “I'm not scared of this ending. The worst thing that can happen to me has already happened. You can cut me tomorrow and I'll wave good-bye.”

To the game, maybe. To his friend, it won't be that easy.