By Perry Lefko,
CFL.ca
This is a note of thanks to Kent Austin and Doug Berry, two individuals who have helped me in recent weeks.
In late June, I made the decision to leave the newspaper business after a total of 24 years, including the last 21 with the Toronto Sun, to join the Canadian Football League as its Director of Communications.
In my last 11 years with the Sun, I reported on the CFL. I enjoyed the game and the people. In particular, I loved watching the teams practice, gaining an understanding of the plays and the schemes. Occasionally, I’d even fancy myself as an expert and give a coach a play. Often when I engaged in such a situation with Austin, the offensive co-ordinator of the Argos, he’d laugh. I’m not sure whether he appreciated my enthusiasm or considered me crazy.
I developed a special bond with the Argos, and announced to the team my decision to leave the newspaper business to join the CFL.
Some individuals looked at me indifferently. Some laughed – no, I won’t mention you, John Avery – and some truly felt happy for me and wished me well.
Kent Austin was one of them. He smiled and said, “good move.” It was a simple, heartfelt gesture that meant a lot to me.
I thought of Kent the other day when the Argos announced they had dismissed him. Austin had been into his third season with the team, winning the Grey Cup in his first season and helping to develop quarterback Damon Allen into the league’s Most Outstanding Player last season. This season the Argos struggled offensively, impacted by the broken finger Allen suffered in the first game of the season and kept him on the sidelines for several games.
But my immediate impression upon hearing Austin’s fate had less to do with the body of his work and more to with his quality as a person. In a word, he’s a good guy, like many of the people you’ll encounter in the CFL, but it’s a business. A harsh one, at that. In fact, football analyst Eric Tillman often says: “It’s a great game, but a lousy business.”
Whatever happens to Kent Austin in the future, whether it’s in football or outside of the game, I wish him well.
Now on to Doug Berry. I kept the news of my job switch secret from my colleagues, sharing it only with my family. I knew going into the Argos’ first road game of the season, which took place in Winnipeg, that it would be my last as a reporter. It was a strange and surreal feeling. After the game ended and I had filed my final story for the Toronto Sun, I stood outside the Blue Bombers’ executive office, which is adjacent to the football operations. Berry, the Bombers’ first-year head coach who had just celebrated his first-ever victory as a head guy instead of an assistant, exited the doors of the football operations, where I encountered him. I introduced myself, and he knew me, or at least seemed to, partly because I had spent many times talking to his former boss, Montreal Alouettes’ head coach Don Matthews. He and I go back to my first full year of covering the CFL in 1996.
I told Doug of my impending career switch, which would be formally announced in a few days, but wanted him to know about it because of my intention to introduce myself to the various coaches I didn’t know or who didn’t know me.
I had an occasion to draw upon that initial meeting last week when several members of the CFL office travelled to Winnipeg to huddle with the 2006 Grey Cup Festival Committee.
Prior to the game, I had been asked by TSN’s Brian Williams if I could find out whether or not Milt Stegall would be playing. Brian had done a feature with Milt the day before, but the playing status of the receiver had been uncertain due to injured ribs.
I walked up to Berry as his team departed the dressing room to take the field in the moments before the game started and asked him about the playing status of Stegall, so I could forward the information to TSN, which had done an interview with the receiver the day before. If Stegall didn’t play, it planned to dispense the information at the start of the broadcast.
Berry looked at me rather curiously, uncertain whether or not to reply given the strange and unusual request, but he confirmed Stegall wouldn’t play.
It was a simple little thing, but it meant a lot.
Thanks, Coach Berry.
Perry Lefko is the CFL Director of Communications
