Blue not managing to control their own message

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 03/09/2009 (5929 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It was an interesting week at the old community-owned football team, even if the Bombers weren’t playing.

It began on Monday when the head coach made his edict official on CJOB radio.

Seated at the Upper Deck Sports bar with the radio station’s sports director Bob "Knuckles" Irving, Mike Kelly said he would no longer be taking call-in questions from fans on the Mike Kelly Show. He would only take questions in writing. And he would, by extension, only answer the ones he wanted to answer.

Why?

He blamed it on the "knuckleheads" who called in every week. Guys who got him so upset it would take Kelly 40 minutes "to gear myself down a little bit sometimes because of the banter we had back and forth."

Kelly said he thought it should be a "positive show." And he didn’t appreciate the knuckleheads’ "aggressive behaviour right off the bat."

By way of aggressive behaviour, he offered the example of those who wanted the head coach’s head on a Blue and Gold platter.

"You know," Kelly added, "I got daughters who listen to this show every night, too. And people seem to lose sight of that. That, you know, they’re not thrilled about hearing Dad getting attacked."

Let’s see now, last time I checked, Mayor Sam Katz does a regular call-in show on 1290 CFRW. As does the city’s police chief and, until his job description recently changed, so did Premier Gary Doer. But the Bombers’ head coach will no longer be taking your calls.

Why not?

I mean, really, why not?

Kelly offered the other overarching reason on his show.

He and the Bombers are going to "control the message."

It’s a phrase that he repeated mantra-like throughout the new written-questions-only show. The problem was, Kelly couldn’t control the message when the fans were on the phone. He couldn’t seem to control his caustic, schoolyard-bully comebacks, either.

Not that he seemed to want to.

"I’m not shying away from anybody," Kelly told Irving and the radio audience. "If you want to come down and write a question down and give it to us, then fine. I’ll answer anyone’s questions."

Except, if I may interject, earlier this season when reporters asked about the Canadian Football League reprimanding the Bombers after a "spy" was caught scouting a Hamilton Tiger Cats practice.

"Non-issue," Kelly arrogantly ‘answered.’ He said it aggressively, repeatedly and, yes, dismissively.

In retrospect, maybe that was the first obvious glimpse of Mike Kelly and the Bombers controlling the message.

That’s the way the NFL works, Kelly said. They control the message.

"And the argument is going to come up, ‘Oh, it’s a community-owned club,’" Kelly said. "Well, you know, so is the Green Bay Packers. And the Green Bay Packers control their message."

"And," Kelly said, switching targets, "the media is NOT going to control me. Period."

At which point Bob Irving jumped in.

"No," he retorted. "And you’re not going to control the media. Period."

Irving asked Kelly if he understood that. Kelly said he didn’t understand that, and insisted again that sportswriters don’t control the message.

"I’m interested in making this the most professional football operation that we can make it," Kelly added. "And that means that we control the message."

"You try to, anyway," Irving said.

"We will," Kelly insisted.

"We’ll see," Irving said.

Which brings us to Tuesday.

By that time the word was out that NFL bad boy Adam "Pacman" Jones was close to completing a deal to play for the CFL Bombers. Bomber personnel director John Murphy had been blabbing and boasting to Sports Illustrated magazine.

As my colleague Randy Turner so aptly wrote, it was hard to know what was going on with the "gong show" at the Bombers’ office, given that club president Lyle Bauer denied the signing, and director of football operations Ross Hodgkinson refused to talk about Pacman.

So there you have it.

The Bombers doing their best to control a message that a member of the Bomber management had already blabbed.

On Wednesday night, Mike Kelly suddenly announced the Bombers "will not be pursuing the services of Adam Jones."

Here’s a message for the head coach.

You can’t even control the Bombers’ message, never mind the media’s message. And you won’t control the media. Any knucklehead knows that.

Except, perhaps, one.

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca