The Hamilton Tiger-Cats selected Weber State offensive tackle Zac Carlson on Monday with the first overall selection in the supplemental draft.
In doing so, the Tiger-Cats forfeited their first round pick in the 2010 Canadian Draft.
Carlson's application for non-import status was not approved in time to make the final Canadian draft eligibility list and he was not eligible to be selected on May 2. He was projected as a top six pick, and might have gone as high as first overall, in the CFL's Canadian Draft.
Carlson was born in Winnipeg but moved to California as a child, and in order to have qualified as a non-import, he needed to prove that he lived in Canada for seven of his first fifteen years.
For an application to be approved a player must provide documentation, such as school records, tax returns, and rent receipts, proving his time of residence in Canada to two different governing bodies - the Canadian Football League and the CFL Players Association. Despite the fact that the two organizations evaluate applications based on identical criteria, the CFL and CFLPA arrived at different verdicts in the Carlson case, with the PA feeling that he lacked supporting documentation for a few months of the seven years.