Trying to rekindle past can be risky

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/01/2010 (6057 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

So it appears the Blue Bombers are on the verge of hiring an individual who had previous success with the organization several years ago before heading to the NFL, working with some prominent executives, although his specific employment of late is a little vague.

Sound familiar?

Let’s be clear: In no way does this preface mean to compare Joe Mack — expected to be named the Bombers’ vice-president of football operations — to the departed Mike Kelly. That would be unfair on so many levels, without question.

But the optics can’t be ignored. The Bombers are in this mess because former president and CEO Lyle Bauer took a chance on Kelly, who still had the stink of the Bombers’ glory years all over him. Didn’t matter that Kelly was over 10 years removed from the CFL (before becoming a receivers’ coach with the Esks in 2008), had been immersed in the minutia of the NFL for years, or that his last head-coaching job — from which he was unceremoniously fired — was with a tiny U.S. college.

Kelly could adapt, or so Bauer believed. Besides, he had success before as a CFL offensive co-ordinator and by all anecdotal accounts was a fine, even charismatic guy. Or maybe Bauer just Googled Kelly.

Whatever. It was an utter disaster, the ramifications of which the Bombers are still trying to dig out from under — a process that could take years if the wrong decisions are made at such a critical moment in the organization’s history.

So understandably, the notion of hiring Mack, a personnel guy with the Bombers during the real glory years of the mid-’80s, is more than a little curious. A cynic could reasonably ask, “Dude, if you’re looking to recapture the glory years, why not just hire Cal Murphy already? I mean, if Bud Grant doesn’t want the gig.”

And maybe that’s just another burden for a franchise that hasn’t experienced a Grey Cup victory in two decades; that in looking for answers for the future, there’s the inevitable pull back to the misty-eyed past.

Because, face it, Mack’s name wouldn’t be on the Bombers’ radar if not being championed by Paul Robson, a former GM and current member of the board’s search committee with links to the good old days. And that’s fair enough. Besides, Robson can only have so much influence on the board, who ultimately will make their decision as a whole.

There have been rumours floating around that there has been a difference of opinion among board members on whom to hire, split between Mack, former GM Brendan Taman (who signed with the Roughriders Thursday) and Jim Barker, the senior vice-president of football operations and personnel director for the Stampeders.

Of course there’s differing opinions. Each candidate has their own baggage. Taman has been there, done that. Barker has just three years’ experience as a GM in the CFL with the Stamps. And Mack? Well, frankly nobody really knows much about the guy, other than reading his resumé.

That’s why Taman or Barker might have been seen to have the inside track. Each would have been considered the safer options given their hands-on involvement in the CFL over the last decade. Both would be more up to speed and certainly would have more concrete game plans in terms of putting together a coaching staff, the first order of business for whoever is handed the job.

And after the Kelly experiment, safe would at first blush be a more palatable option. Maybe even at second blush. It harkens back to the sad end of the Jeff Reinebold era, where the Bombers’ brass were looking to divorce themselves from the Cal Murphy era, which ended with a 68-7 evisceration by the Edmonton Eskimos in the 1996 West semifinal. Reinebold represented change, a refreshing break from the past. Just as Kelly did. Both failed miserably.

So there are no secret recipes, no guarantees. You can attempt to rekindle the past and get stomped. Or you can make a conscious effort to separate yourself from that same past and win five games over the next two gawd-awful seasons.

Decisions, decisions.

If Mack is the guy, all a beleaguered Bombers fan can do is hope that this time the board got it right, despite the myriad of unknowns involved.

Personally, I’m not so much interested in reliving the long, lost past as trying to forget the more recent one. You know, the one that involved a risky hire with myriad of unknowns. Ahem.

Bottom line: If Mack is judged against the Bombers’ days of glory, his work will be cut out for him. If he’s judged by so many years in between, how could he possibly do any worse?

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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