Esks boss wins coach of year
It was as classy and as emotional an acceptance speech as perhaps ever in the history of the CFL coach of the year award.
Tom Higgins didn't think it would mean that much to him to win the Annis Stukus Trophy. Until the Edmonton Eskimos coach won it.
"I always had a dream and a vision of becoming a head coach," Higgins began after his standing ovation at the Mayfield Inn here yesterday. "My dream and my vision had my family all there, smiles all around, balloons ...
"I never dreamed the way it was three years ago. I never dreamed it would be a nightmare.
"Instead I'm sitting beside Hugh Campbell and there are no smiles. Players on the team in tears, many of them losing a coach they loved to play for and it was not the vision I'd imagined so many years ago," he said of the day the Esks fired Don Matthews during training camp. Matthews, who won the award last year as head coach of the Grey Cup-champion Montreal Alouettes, was noticeable by his absence.
The thing that Higgins didn't expect yesterday was, after having taken the Eskimos to three consecutive first-place finishes, he'd have the day he'd dreamed of and envisioned. It wasn't the day he got the job. It was the day of confirmation for doing the job.
His wife was there but not his three children. Nor was his dad, a former NFL player from the '50s, who spent 45 years as a coach and was celebrating his 73rd birthday.
"Had I known it would be like this, I'd have had my kids play hooky," he said. "I didn't think it would be a touching, emotional moment."
HE GROWS ON YOU
Tom Higgins is a guy who grows on you - grows slow on you.
Two years ago, after the Eskimos had lost the Western Final in his first season taking over the team, it was generally agreed he'd have to win the Western Final to keep his job.
Last year, after having made a controversial call in losing the Grey Cup game, it was generally agreed he'd pretty much have to win the Grey Cup to keep his job.
When he was 3-3 to start the season, open-line shows were littered with fans calling for him to be fired. And they were back on the phones when he lost the Labour Day Classic in Calgary.
Higgins said it wasn't difficult for him to handle all that because he grew up in a football family.
"You don't get in this profession if you're thin skinned," he said. "One day you can be drinking the wine, the next day you can be picking the grapes."
OUTSIDE PRESSURE
Admitting it's taken time for players to come around to him, Higgins said by his third year most of the pressure was coming from outside the organization.
"There was no pressure on the inside. All the pressure was on the exterior. There's an old saying that pressure is what makes diamonds. Pressure is not a negative. Stress is a negative.
"Coaching the Edmonton Eskimos at any time involves pressure. Expectations are always higher in Edmonton and it's not a bad thing."
Higgins said coming to the Eskimos in the first place meant giving up his aspirations to coach.
"I'd been close so many times," he said of finishing second applying for several head coaching jobs including finishing second in Calgary to Wally Buono.
"Finally I came to Edmonton as assistant GM and then GM and in doing that I gave up my dream of being a head coach.
"The satisfaction in finally becoming a head coach has been doing things with other people. It's a team sport. As a coaching staff we grew and got better. I'm blessed."
Coaches always thank their assistant coaches ... yadda, yadda, yadda. But Higgins made you believe it.
"We have 84 years of experience on this staff," he said of Bill MacDermott, Greg Marshall, Danny Maciocia, Dan McKinnon, Rick Campbell and Dan Kepley.
"The Eskimos are going to be supplying head coaches to the CFL in the next few years like the Eskimos have supplied quarterbacks to the CFL over the years."
Higgins, after delivering the first Eskimo Grey Cup in a decade, said there's nothing wrong with winning the other trophy, too.
Edmonton has won a dozen Grey Cups now, but in 43 years of hosting the coach of the year, haven't done so well.
"There are not a lot of Edmonton Eskimos' coaches names on this," he said of the Stukus trophy, which during many of those years the Football Reporters of Canada have avoided giving to Edmonton coaches taking first-place teams to first place and Grey Cup teams to Grey Cups.
Ray Jauch in 1970, Hugh Campbell in 1980 and Ron Lancaster in 1996 were the only previous Eskimos coaches to win it. Only Campbell won the Grey Cup and coach of the year trophy the same season. Ex-Eskimo head coaches have won it 13 times.
And none of them made it such a feel-good moment.
"Unlike the day I was hired, there were a lot of smiles around the room," said Higgins.
No balloons.
http://www.canoe.com/Slam040227/col_jones-sun.html
It was as classy and as emotional an acceptance speech as perhaps ever in the history of the CFL coach of the year award.
Tom Higgins didn't think it would mean that much to him to win the Annis Stukus Trophy. Until the Edmonton Eskimos coach won it.
"I always had a dream and a vision of becoming a head coach," Higgins began after his standing ovation at the Mayfield Inn here yesterday. "My dream and my vision had my family all there, smiles all around, balloons ...
"I never dreamed the way it was three years ago. I never dreamed it would be a nightmare.
"Instead I'm sitting beside Hugh Campbell and there are no smiles. Players on the team in tears, many of them losing a coach they loved to play for and it was not the vision I'd imagined so many years ago," he said of the day the Esks fired Don Matthews during training camp. Matthews, who won the award last year as head coach of the Grey Cup-champion Montreal Alouettes, was noticeable by his absence.
The thing that Higgins didn't expect yesterday was, after having taken the Eskimos to three consecutive first-place finishes, he'd have the day he'd dreamed of and envisioned. It wasn't the day he got the job. It was the day of confirmation for doing the job.
His wife was there but not his three children. Nor was his dad, a former NFL player from the '50s, who spent 45 years as a coach and was celebrating his 73rd birthday.
"Had I known it would be like this, I'd have had my kids play hooky," he said. "I didn't think it would be a touching, emotional moment."
HE GROWS ON YOU
Tom Higgins is a guy who grows on you - grows slow on you.
Two years ago, after the Eskimos had lost the Western Final in his first season taking over the team, it was generally agreed he'd have to win the Western Final to keep his job.
Last year, after having made a controversial call in losing the Grey Cup game, it was generally agreed he'd pretty much have to win the Grey Cup to keep his job.
When he was 3-3 to start the season, open-line shows were littered with fans calling for him to be fired. And they were back on the phones when he lost the Labour Day Classic in Calgary.
Higgins said it wasn't difficult for him to handle all that because he grew up in a football family.
"You don't get in this profession if you're thin skinned," he said. "One day you can be drinking the wine, the next day you can be picking the grapes."
OUTSIDE PRESSURE
Admitting it's taken time for players to come around to him, Higgins said by his third year most of the pressure was coming from outside the organization.
"There was no pressure on the inside. All the pressure was on the exterior. There's an old saying that pressure is what makes diamonds. Pressure is not a negative. Stress is a negative.
"Coaching the Edmonton Eskimos at any time involves pressure. Expectations are always higher in Edmonton and it's not a bad thing."
Higgins said coming to the Eskimos in the first place meant giving up his aspirations to coach.
"I'd been close so many times," he said of finishing second applying for several head coaching jobs including finishing second in Calgary to Wally Buono.
"Finally I came to Edmonton as assistant GM and then GM and in doing that I gave up my dream of being a head coach.
"The satisfaction in finally becoming a head coach has been doing things with other people. It's a team sport. As a coaching staff we grew and got better. I'm blessed."
Coaches always thank their assistant coaches ... yadda, yadda, yadda. But Higgins made you believe it.
"We have 84 years of experience on this staff," he said of Bill MacDermott, Greg Marshall, Danny Maciocia, Dan McKinnon, Rick Campbell and Dan Kepley.
"The Eskimos are going to be supplying head coaches to the CFL in the next few years like the Eskimos have supplied quarterbacks to the CFL over the years."
Higgins, after delivering the first Eskimo Grey Cup in a decade, said there's nothing wrong with winning the other trophy, too.
Edmonton has won a dozen Grey Cups now, but in 43 years of hosting the coach of the year, haven't done so well.
"There are not a lot of Edmonton Eskimos' coaches names on this," he said of the Stukus trophy, which during many of those years the Football Reporters of Canada have avoided giving to Edmonton coaches taking first-place teams to first place and Grey Cup teams to Grey Cups.
Ray Jauch in 1970, Hugh Campbell in 1980 and Ron Lancaster in 1996 were the only previous Eskimos coaches to win it. Only Campbell won the Grey Cup and coach of the year trophy the same season. Ex-Eskimo head coaches have won it 13 times.
And none of them made it such a feel-good moment.
"Unlike the day I was hired, there were a lot of smiles around the room," said Higgins.
No balloons.
http://www.canoe.com/Slam040227/col_jones-sun.html
