Fun-loving ‘Rudy’ as Blue CEO? Stay tuned

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/01/2010 (6058 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Gotta admit, the thought of Wade Miller rolling into Maroons Road as the big cheese of Blue Bombers business operations evokes misty memories of the player they called “Rudy” orchestrating an endless string of practical jokes on unsuspecting teammates back in the day.

Miller was a talent-challenged, undersized trier who couldn’t be picked out of a lineup of fire hydrants.

I often referred to him as the CFL’s version of Dennis the Menace. He was as mischievous off the field as he was mysteriously proficient on the turf. In fact, how Miller managed to last more than a decade in a uniform not purchased at the Bombers Store is a mystery that rivals the construction of Stonehenge or the pyramids of ancient Egypt.

Successful

So it’s frankly hard to get your head around the fact that the same guy, with a few years of successful entrepreneurship under his taut belt, is on a short list (no pun intended) to fill the Bombers’ vacant president/CEO post.

It kinda reminds me of this happy-go-lucky kid in my high school who never got good grades. He was eventually slotted into the “occupational education curriculum”, known as OEC, which was a then-politically correct means to academically separate the future machinists from future university students.

Long story short: That same kid is worth more now — due to a fabulously lucrative career in the oil business, starting from the rigs up — than the rest of us former classmates combined.

Humbling

It’s a humbling lesson that success is not predestined, and that free from the limiting expectations of others, anything is possible with hard work, natural intuition and a shoulder chip put there by pigeonholers left to gape upon hearing a former classmate’s net worth at a 20th high school reunion.

Turns out there’s a fine line between OEC and CEO. Who knew?

Of course, the president/CEO position is only one opening on Maroons Road. There’s the football operations job. There’s the head coach’s position. And with a new head coach, invariably, the positions of any number of assistants.

All these postings will be critical in rebuilding the Bombers’ front office, which is now a rudderless vacuum.

Ah, for those wistful summer days — all of six months ago — when the Bombers’ most pressing concern was to find a quarterback.

After all, when locating a consistently competent signal-caller is somewhere around No. 32 on the to-do list, it’s safe to say the Bombers organization has some uncertain and unsettling issues.

One can only imagine the backroom machinations now occupying the Bombers’ current front office, with their temporary this and interim that, as so many employees’ futures hang in the balance.

Again, no argument that this is a watershed moment for the Bombers franchise, where executive decisions made now will affect the organization for better or worse.

Just look at recent history. Former president and CEO Lyle Bauer, now safely ensconced in Calgary, made an executive decision to fire Doug Berry and hire Mike Kelly, who in turn got rid of quarterback Kevin Glenn and surrendered two high draft picks for Stefan LeFors, a third-string quarterback with the Edmonton Eskimos.

So decisions at the highest levels have a trickle-down effect, obviously. Like the time when the Bombers board, about a decade ago with the club in similar turmoil, hired Brendan Taman, who in turn traded an import offensive lineman and another high pick for Khari Jones, then a third-string quarterback with the B.C. Lions.

History is clear: The tall foreheads, whoever and whenever they’re installed in the Bombers’ front office, won’t be right all the time. Only the most self-deluded of us can make such a claim. But ultimately their success or failure — at least on the football side — will be determined largely on one task: Finding a quarterback.

More precisely, a quarterback who has the ability, structure and tools around him to lead the Bombers out of the wilderness. For all the drama and destruction wrought in the past forgettable season, the most immediate grassroots need in Bomberville hasn’t changed.

The Bombers desperately needed a starting quarterback 12 months ago. They needed one six months ago. They need one now.

True, first things first. And perhaps naming a football operations boss is step No. 1.

Don’t kid yourself, though. In the CFL, front-office people come and go. A lot of them never really go anywhere; they’re just recycled under the term “experienced.” And invariably their football IQ is directly related to their record, which is largely dependent on the passing rating of the quarterback. You can look it up.

Yes, the Bombers need a man who can run a business and a man who can find talent.

But until they find a quarterback, we sincerely wish them the best of luck.

randy.turner@freepress.mb.ca

Randy Turner
Reporter

Randy Turner spent much of his journalistic career on the road. A lot of roads. Dirt roads, snow-packed roads, U.S. interstates and foreign highways. In other words, he got a lot of kilometres on the odometer, if you know what we mean.

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