CFL.ca
Fraser Caldwell
Ticats.ca
The opening of the Ticats’ training camp on Sunday morning meant a return to the field for many of the team’s veteran leaders, who confront a very new and different set of surroundings as they suit up in Black and Gold this time around.
A new coaching staff inherently brings with it a fresh playbook and set of methods, but as the team’s more seasoned members explain, football is a universal language. After years of experience on the gridiron that language is one that they speak well.
“The terminology is always different,” said long time Ticat pass catcher Dave Stala of the overhauled schematics that a coaching change entails. “The hardest part is always trying to memorize things, and we’re going away from the number system so there’s a lot more words to be memorized. But it’s football.
“You understand how to run a hook route and how to run a go route. Once you know the play, you can go full speed from there, but I’ve never had problems with playbooks and hopefully that will be the case with this one.”
Renauld Williams – a veteran CFL linebacker who enters his second season in Black and Gold – echoed Stala’s belief that experience neutralizes the pain of learning a new playbook. He argues that certain characteristics and attitudes are to be expected of players regardless of the man at the helm, and these should transcend schematic changes.
“Football is football,” said Williams. “Coach Creehan is an intense dude, so that’s really what you have to get used to. You have to learn the tempo that he wants to practice at. But football’s all about running to the ball, and it’s a physical game. No matter where you go, coaches want physical play and they want you to do your job the best that you can.
“Once you get to my age and you’ve played for a while, you’ve pretty much seen all that there is to see. I’m familiar with what Coach Creehan is trying to do. Obviously he has his own twists, his own version of doing things, and the terminology is different. But it’s just a matter of experience and I’ll pick it up pretty fast.”
Such experience places Williams and players like him in a privileged position, but also brings with it the responsibility of mentoring the team’s cohort of young and unfamiliar performers. That duty is one that the veteran linebacker assumes willingly, and he explains that much of the impetus to help comes from knowing full well the struggle that young players face to acclimate themselves to the professional game.
“There is mentoring involved as you get older because you’ve been in these younger guys’ shoes,” said Williams. “You know how it is for them. Coaches are throwing plays at you and the game is so much faster, people are running at you. So you want to get their eyes right and get the communication down. It’s easier when everybody’s talking.
“It’s going to make us all better. For us older guys like me, J.J. (Jamall Johnson), Markeith (Knowlton) and Milt (Collins) it’s our job to talk to the younger guys and make sure that they’re on the same page as us. Because as you know, people get hurt in this game and they could be up.”
For his part, the Ticats’ Head Coach and Director of Football Operations George Cortez reiterated that mentorship is a duty he expects his more experienced players to take on, and that such communication helps to fill the gap when coaches are engaged elsewhere.
“They would be remiss if they didn’t,” said Cortez of his veterans’ responsibility to teach their younger peers. “We talk about being a good teammate, whether you’re talking with your teammate and you’re trying to help them out or vice versa. There are situations – like when the defensive players are on the sideline – where coaches are busy with guys on the field and there’s much more of an opportunity for them to talk.
“On offence for example, receivers might see a tendency from a DB or something like that. They try to help each other out. Coaches don’t see everything, just as players don’t see everything.”
The Ticats will hope that such communication continues to pay dividends as the team continues its vetting process in preparation for competitive football.
