Calling for coach’s head premature

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/10/2010 (5808 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It has been suggested in any number of places of late that Blue Bombers head coach Paul LaPolice should be fired and fired right now.

Some would argue his team’s miraculous comeback win on Monday has saved LaPo’s skin for the time being but it’s only a matter of time before he must go.

Others will say his ill-conceived decision to go with untested quarterback Alex Brink rather than Steven Jyles against the B.C. Lions got the Bombers into Monday’s jackpot in the first place. For that decision alone, the rookie head coach should be dismissed. Comeback or not, goes that line of thinking, this was all LaPolice’s doing and he should be gassed for such poor judgment.

Good points, all of them.

But somewhere in all of this there is also a case for keeping LaPolice and feeling good about his leadership of the Bombers going forward.

A friend saw her ex-husband cleaning the windows one day under the watchful eye of his new bride and remarked, “I made him the good husband he is today. I suffered through all his early mistakes. All the screaming and yelling I did, he eventually figured it out. But we were finished by then. And there she was waiting with open arms to accept a man ready to be a good husband. I hate her.”

Well, certainly we have suffered through LaPolice’s early mistakes as the Bombers’ 4-10 record can attest. If Winnipeggers have spent the summer sanding off LaPolice’s rough finish shouldn’t they get to enjoy him once he’s all smooth?

LaPolice is not the first coach to struggle in his early efforts. Ron Lancaster went 4-18 in his first two years as a bench boss, eventually getting clipped by the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Before his days as a coach were over, however, Lancaster would take teams to four Grey Cups and win two of them.

Smart

Not bad and if we could say today that LaPo would eventually tie that mark, Winnipeggers would be smart to hold on to him for dear life.

Making mistakes is part of any job but being the head coach of a town’s favourite professional sports franchise means your boo-boos get played out in a very public manner.

And when Brink bumbled early, the fans at the stadium let their coach know what they thought of his move. When LaPolice yanked Brink for Jyles, the roar could be heard in Transcona.

“Yeah, you can hear that,” said LaPolice during Tuesday’s visit with the media. “But you have to do a good job of believing in what you believe. There have been a bunch of times this year when we punt and the crowd is screaming, ‘Go for it,’ and you know what feels right and wrong. I felt we needed to make a change and we made a change… I hope I’m always steadfast in the process that it’s not about me, it’s not about a player, it’s about the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and it’s about winning. I’ll always do my best to put this team in a position to be successful. I don’t have a looking glass. Sometimes we’re right and sometimes we’re wrong. I hope we’re right more than we’re wrong.”

Firing LaPolice now or at the end of this season might feel good at the time but it would be a temporary salve. It would also send this franchise back to the drawing board. Wrong move.

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Now is the time for stability.

If LaPolice is indeed going to be a winning coach, those days will be evident sooner rather than later.

Hang on a bit, folks. LaPo could be cleaning windows and putting his dirty socks in the hamper any day now.

gary.lawless@freepress.mb.ca