Blue decide on final four for GM post

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This article was published 19/01/2010 (6059 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ search for a new football boss has now been whittled down to a final four.

Sources tell the Free Press the team’s selection committee wrapped up interviews for its vacant vice-president/director of football operations on Monday and three candidates atop the list are:

“ö Joe Mack — the team’s personnel director from 1984-87 before working in the NFL with the Washington Redskins, Carolina Panthers and Cleveland Browns;

“ö Brendan Taman — the Bombers director of player personnel/GM from 1999 to 2008, also in the running for the same job in Saskatchewan where he is currently the Roughriders director of football operations and;

“ö Jim Barker — the Calgary Stampeders senior vice president, football operations/director of player personnel.

A fourth candidate, Ross Hodgkinson, the interim vice-president of football operations, was apparently interviewed on Monday and he could be a contender depending on how much weight the club puts on the operations side of the position. Hodgkinson has spent years in the organization as a trainer and director of football operations and more recently has spent time scouting and handling contracts while becoming one of the club’s experts in handling the CFL’s salary management system.

What remains to be seen now is how this affects John Murphy, the current director of player personnel who has worked to keep the football side running in the absence of a VP of football operations. Murphy is keen to land the job and was interviewed by the headhunter hired by the selection committee. He also had a clause in his contract that stated no one in the football chain of command could be hired above him.

Meanwhile, rumours circulating through the Canadian Football League late Monday had the Bombers ready to commit to Mack, a North Carolina native who has spent the last few years working as a consultant, but the team insists that hire is not a done deal.

A source near the top of the Bombers hierarchy said a football boss could be announced as early as the end of this week and within 10 days at the latest.

Two other candidates, Ross Hodgkinson, the interim vice-president of football operations, and John Murphy, the director of player personnel, have been vetted by a headhunter but not directly by the selection committee and continue to hold the ship together while the search is ongoing. Expect that once a vice-president of football operations is hired, the announcement of a new head coach to replace Mike Kelly will come shortly thereafter.

The team is also seeking a new president/CEO, but that decision is not seen as pressing and interim president Jim Bell could hold that position well into the off-season if not longer.

Bell will likely be considered a dark-horse candidate for the position.

Winnipeg businessman and former Bomber Wade Miller has attracted some buzz, but sources say that decision is far from being made because the board is considering a long list of candidates.

Meanwhile, the other shoe — Lyle Bauer moving to the Calgary Stampeders — finally dropped on Monday.

Bauer, who left the Bombers in late December after a decade in the big chair, was announced as the Stampeders president and CEO, filling the vacancy left by Scott Ackles.

Bauer will run the business side of the Stamps operation while GM/head coach John Hufnagel will continue to handle the football decisions.

Bauer has strong connections in Calgary. He worked in the grain business there after leaving the Bombers in the mid-’90s and kept his home there after returning to Winnipeg. He and Hufnagel were teammates on the 1984 Grey Cup champion Bombers.

“This is somewhat of a homecoming,” Bauer told a media conferernce in Calgary. “A lot of people talk about leaving Winnipeg, but it was actually leaving Calgary to go to Winnipeg about 10 years ago to repay a debt. I left Winnipeg because the job was complete… in terms of stabilizing the organization and getting some consistency.

“It’s time, after 10 years, for everyone to move on and I think it’s a healthy situation for all.”

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca gary.lawless@freepress.mb.ca