Even on TV, there’s a lot to watch when the attraction is a Canadian Football League game. Exciting plays. Crazy fans dressed up for (fill in the blanks). Players dancing in the end zone, or showing off on the sideline. So there I am, sitting in front of the television on the weekend, which is usually the case when the CFL’s in season, and what catches my eye?
Assistant coaches.
Now that women have become sideline reporters, hosts for the talking heads on the panel and even line judges and trainers on the field (their chauvinistic domain at football games was traditionally only as cheerleaders), you might think I’d spot something more attractive than assistant coaches.
Specifically, assistants named Mike Benevides and Rick Campbell. These are a couple of rare cats. Both have known success as head coaches. Campbell was a winner in Ottawa’s last Grey Cup victory, the only one since becoming known as the RedBlacks. Benevides, in three seasons as B.C.’s head coach, compiled a record that was 12 games over .500.
Both are now assistants with the teams that dumped them as head coaches!
Campbell, who left the RedBlacks for greener pastures six years ago as he was surely about to be fired, is actually the team’s “special teams co-ordinator.” However, if you’ve come from an era of one head coach and two assistants, as I have, if somebody’s not the head coach, then he’s an assistant coach.
Is there a CFL precedent for head coaches getting fired and then swallowing their pride to become assistants? Time to visit that rabbit hole of history…
There are only 11 head coaches whose teams have won more than 100 regular-season games, from Wally Buono (282) to Bud Grant and John Hufnagel (102). That includes Winnipeg’s Mike O’Shea, the only active coach on the list, at 110 and counting. Of the other 10, three became assistant coaches with another team after quitting or being fired: Don Matthews (B.C. to Edmonton), Ray Jauch (Winnipeg to Saskatchewan) and Eagle Keys (Edmonton to Saskatchewan). All later became head coaches again.
A fourth — Dave Ritchie — went back to the team that axed him. The Lions sent Head Coach Ritchie packing in 1995 after three seasons, and rehired him as defensive co-ordinator 10 years later. His boss was head coach Wally Buono.
Fast forward to Benevides and Campbell, also Buono beneficiaries. When the CFL’s winningest coach was in Calgary, he recruited Benevides as an assistant, and both moved to B.C. in 2003. When Buono “retired” to become general manager, he gave the job to Benevides. Three years later Buono fired Benevides and “unretired.” Three years after that, Buono replaced himself again, this time with Campbell.
None of this explains why Campbell and Benevides would stay on the coaching carousel by working as assistants with teams that didn’t want them to be head coaches, does it? To answer myself, which sometimes happens, I determined either (a) they needed the job (b) they can parlay it into becoming a head coach again, or (c) they have no egos and they just like the work.
You don’t find those answers on TV, even when you focus on the assistant coaches.
