Change of heart lands Cobourne with Blue

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This article was published 31/05/2016 (3482 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As a player, Avon Cobourne hated Winnipeg. The team’s linebackers were particularly pesky and he didn’t like going up against a specific diminutive defensive lineman, Jerome Haywood.

“I used to like to talk a little bit and that used to get them fired up,” Cobourne said. “It was always a tough game. If I look back on my career, I think I only have two or three 100-yard games in four years of rushing against these guys. I always thought to myself, “Man, this is going to be a fight today.”

Ironically, Cobourne solidified his status as a starting running back in Week 2 of the 2008 season. Then a member of the Montreal Alouettes, he dropped 185 yards and a touchdown on the Bombers in an emphatic 38-24 win for the Als.

Cobourne’s credentials speak for themselves. A two-time Grey Cup champion, including being named Most Outstanding Player in the 2009 Grey Cup, he finished his seven-year CFL career with 4,999 rushing yards, 2,510 receiving yards and 44 touchdowns

After being cut by the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in early 2013, Cobourne was named as the running backs coach in Saskatchewan in 2014. He holds the same post with the Blue Bombers.

Despite his dislike for the town during his playing days, Cobourne knew it was time to join the rebuild in Winnipeg.

“It was a great opportunity, man,” he said. “We had a plan to get a great, quality back (Winnipegger Andrew Harris) that would make plays for us. For me, I thought that was an enticing opportunity for me. I also heard Winnipeg was a great place to live, so I took the gamble and came.”

Coaching wasn’t something Cobourne initially enjoyed. It took him a fair bit of time to get used to it.

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“I really didn’t know if this was what I wanted to do,” he said. “I got an opportunity and didn’t take it lightly. I worked as hard as I could. It didn’t have my own room to start, I’d have to whisper to guys my philosophy. But I really wasn’t ready for it, I probably couldn’t have handled it. But now I have my own room, I got it in my second year. It’s awesome.”

Cobourne’s coaching style is modelled much after his own game, and he wants backs to play with the zeal he did.

“All I wanted coming in was for my guys to be extremely competitive and, from top to bottom, these guys have been competing,” he said. “That’s all you really want as a coach.

“We want to make sure defences know where we are every time we touch the ball. My philosophy is one, physical and, two, explosive. Every guy is different but, for me, the mentality has to be the same. There’s more than one way to skin a cat, but I know over my career and being a coach now, I know how to be successful.”

scott.billeck@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @scottbilleck

Scott Billeck
Reporter

Scott Billeck is a general assignment reporter for the Free Press. A Creative Communications graduate from Red River College, Scott has more than a decade’s worth of experience covering hockey, football and global pandemics. He joined the Free Press in 2024.  Read more about Scott.

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