Enough with the ludicrous, it’s time to do Labour

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/09/2009 (5926 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

REGINA — A small crowd was milling about the main entrance of Taylor Field Saturday morning — thousands more were inside for the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ annual Fan Day — when the Winnipeg Blue Bomber team buses pulled up in front.

And in an effort to clear up the growing misconceptions about this embattled team and an organization that has made headlines all over North America this week, we can assure you that as the players exited the buses there were no painted elephants or clowns, no bearded ladies or lion tamers in tow.

And, no, when the Bombers are introduced to a sold-out Labour Day Classic crowd this afternoon, they won’t be sprinting onto the turf to any number of circus-related ditties.

But in a week in which the Bomber brand took a beating — it’s been called everything from a gong show to a circus to a laughingstock — game day simply couldn’t come quickly enough.

Sideshow

Now, thankfully, it’s about what happens ON the field, not the riveting sideshow off it.

That’s because no matter how many times head coach Mike Kelly & Co. collectively step in doo-doo or jam a size 11 into their cakeholes, football is a bottom-line business.

And let’s face it, should the Bombers exit Taylor Field at 4-5 — and having won two straight for the first time this season — the focus of attention, at least temporarily, will be more about the men in jerseys than the bad boys on the negotiation list.

"You know what? All that stuff will go away once we start winning," said Bomber linebacker Barrin Simpson, not long after the club completed its final preparations on a mosquito-infested pitch outside Taylor Field. "When we start winning regularly, you watch.

"Then the coaches become the greatest coaches to ever coach in Bomber history. And then this becomes the best team to ever play or step onto a Bomber field… you know how it goes. Wins make everything negative go away.

"All that other stuff… we just take it with a grain of salt. That stuff goes right over our heads. It’s all about the football for us. The bottom line here is wins and losses. Wins mean you keep your job, losses get you out of here."

Oh sure, that’s no different than any other pro team in any other sport. It’s always about the winning and the losing.

But for Kelly, even just eight games into his first season as a head coach, everything appears to be more black and white than usual. And every game becomes a referendum on his entire program.

Maybe it’s because of his handling of the media or the contradictions in some of his statements.

(He couldn’t wait to coach the Bombers because they have the greatest fans… but those same faithful he has dubbed "schizophrenic" and are now banned from calling in to his radio show). Maybe it’s because he handles potentially explosive situations — see: Derick Armstrong affair, Spygate, etc. — like a man soaked in gasoline and nitroglycerine who lights up a cigar.

There was the boss Saturday, effectively dealing with the "crotch-of-Canada" comment and playing nicey-nice in his media conference in an effort to defuse the widely held notion across the country that he is evil incarnate.

"All those distractions go directly to me," he said.

"I’m responsible for that, and they come to me so it keeps our players out of it. I take responsibility for what happens with our organization. Our players have been tremendous. We have an absolutely great locker-room and it’s to the players’ credit and the assistant coaches’ credit that we have built a culture that is back to very similar of the Bombers I remember of the late ’80s and early ’90s. That’s our directive. That’s where we want to get to."

But building a "culture" like that isn’t always quantifiable for a championship-hungry fan base. Wins and losses are.

And a 3-5 start that has seen the Bombers take some beatings in the court of public opinion won’t win over the masses.

And what of those "circus" and "gong show"

references?

Winnipeg Free Press | Newsletter

Mike McIntyre | On Sports

Thursdays

Keep up to date on sports with Mike McIntyre's weekly newsletter.

Sign up for Mike McIntyre | On Sports

Sign Up

I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

"You know what? A lot of people that are saying or writing that… it’s not worth my time to really worry about it," said Kelly, grinning. "Put that in your paper, will ya?

"All this is a lot like being an accountant," he continued. "You move the figures around… you might have a debit over here and an asset over there, but at the end of the fiscal year, what is your bottom line? And our bottom line is we have to win football games. That’s how these guys have approached this and they’re focused on it.

"And hopefully we can cash out at the end of November."

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca