Burke doesn’t spare the lash

Posted: 3:20 AM CDT Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2013

IT'S a matter of opinion if it's tough love or the most obvious sign of a taskmaster.

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IT'S a matter of opinion if it's tough love or the most obvious sign of a taskmaster.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/08/2013 (4493 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

IT’S a matter of opinion if it’s tough love or the most obvious sign of a taskmaster.

One thing’s been clear with the unsuccessful Winnipeg Blue Bombers this season — their head coach, Tim Burke, doesn’t suffer mistakes well and he’s not afraid to point them out publicly, while adding a dash of criticism to the comment.

Burke’s blunt and frank sessions with reporters have not sugar-coated very much this season.

Mike Deal / Winnipeg Free Press
Bombers head coach Tim Burke talks to media at the airport after arriving in Winnipeg from Vancouver. — Mike Deal / Winnipeg Free Press Bombers head coach Tim Burke talks to media at the airport after arriving in Winnipeg from Vancouver.

And it sounds like it’s pretty much the same with the team’s players, which isn’t bothering at least one veteran.

“I love it,” said tackle Glenn January. “We like it because whenever you have a coach that puts a lot of fluff and sugar-coating on stuff as a vet, I’m sitting here thinking, ‘That’s B.S.’ I know what the point is. I know what the goal is. I know where we are. I know what we have to accomplish.”

The way January talked, Burke is the least of the Bombers’ troubles at 1-5 through six games.

“He shoots it like it is,” January said. “He tells you straight. He doesn’t mess around with feelings and stuff like that and that’s the kind of coaching style I like.

“That might be the hard-nosed Texan coming out in me but that’s the way I like it, the way I’ve always been raised and that’s the way I’ve come to expect to be coached. It is something that I’ve appreciated, something that I embrace whenever I sit in on the meetings with him.”

Burke has never made any apologies for his honesty and feels it’s the only way to operate with players.

“They need consistency,” the coach said Tuesday. “They don’t need a coach that’s going to be up and down, let the emotions take them away.”

— Tim Campbell