CFL.ca
It’s become a familiar sight over the last two CFL seasons, but particularly in the late stages of this year.
Hamilton Ticats’ Special Teams Coordinator Jeff Reinebold charging along the sidelines, pumped to the hilt just after a big return or a smothering tackle by the cover team he coaches.
During last week’s Eastern Final, he was at it again. Over the moon at the work of his units in Hamilton’s win over the Montreal Alouettes, the cameras caught him in an adrenaline-soaked speed walk. Sometimes he’s seen in a feverish pounding of his hands together. Or an enthusiastic slap to the helmet of one of his charges as they came off the field.
“You feel it in your heart,” said football’s happy nomad, smiling.
For Reinebold, the proper execution of a special teams plan is a beautiful thing, and one that sends him in to a tizzy, even after all these years of drawing up x’s and o’s. Mostly, he says, it’s because of how he feels about the players.
“I’ve been overpaid my entire career,” the 57-year-old said as we chatted in a quiet corner during the Ticats’ media breakfast. “Not in a monetary sense. From an emotional standpoint. To have the relationship that I have with these players and to see them succeed, that’s a tremendous, tremendous trip.”
“Because you recognize . . . this is where I get a little emotional . . . you realize that most of the guys that are out there are minimum salary guys,” explains the native of South Bend, Indiana. “Guys like Beau Landry, guys like Neil King, guys like Marc Beswick. They’re busting their ass and they’re the grinders. To see them succeed is tremendous, tremendous payback for me.”
As Sunday’s 102nd Grey Cup draws ever closer, it is up to Reinebold to ensure that the Ticat special teams continue to excel, maybe even amaze. In the last week of the regular season, his decision to line punt cover players up on-side, on a windy day, paid dividends as the ‘Cats blasted Montreal to take the East. Last weekend, those same Alouettes were victimized by returner Brandon Banks, who torched them for two punt return touchdowns.
“Most of the credit goes to him,” said Banks, when asked about his successes as a returner. “I mean, we couldn’t do it without him drawing up a scheme and telling us what to do, so much credit goes to Coach Reinebold.”
Everybody, it seems, loves Jeff Reinebold. That was not always the case and he knows it. When he was the head coach of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers back in the late 90’s, he did step on some toes. Brash and blunt, the motorcycle-riding coach with the long hair and an earring was not on everybody’s Christmas card list.
“I’ve still got the hole, I just don’t have the earring in it any more,” he said with a smile.
“If you asked me a question I was gonna give you an honest answer,” he recalled of his younger days. “Sometimes, that’s refreshing but that can also be dangerous to the person that gives the honest answers because that’s very unusual in this business.”
Reinebold admits that even today he may not be able to play the diplomacy game as well as some would like. However, the sandpaper of time has rounded off the edges, he says, making him a more favourable personality around the league that he loves.
“We all grow,” he said, matter-of-factly. “I was younger . . . I never cared too much what people thought. I never did anything to affect an image, that’s just who I was.”
Just who he is now, is a guy who continues to stay close to a game he loves dearly. One that has taken him to places like Montana, New Mexico, Vancouver, Las Vegas and Edmonton. To Germany, Hawaii, Montreal and now Hamilton. To name a few.
When asked to put his football life into perspective in ten words or less, Reinebold replies: “I could do it in two: Very blessed.”
Those travels, filled with stops that have had various levels of success and failure, have led Reinebold back to the league that he says he’s loved since long before he ever started to be employed in it. He professes that he has been a fan of Canadian football since his university days.
“I fell in love with this game, the Canadian game, when I was in college,” he said.
“We used to be able to get CFL games on the television in Orono (where the University of Maine is located) and I would sit around with my college teammates and we would watch CFL games. That was in the age of Tommy Clements, and Rocky DiPietro and really, really great players. I was fascinated by the game. And then to think that it was unique to a country. It was the country’s game. So, I became a CFL fan.”
A CFL guest coach in 1988, Reinebold’s first full-time employment came in 1991, with the BC Lions, where he served as receivers and special teams coach. In 1997, he became the head coach of the Blue Bombers. After a tumultuous two seasons — and a 7-29 record, Reinebold was gone from the CFL until Marc Trestman brought him back as the Alouettes’ defensive coordinator in 2012.
“It was an opportunity to come back to the game I love,” said Reinebold, who joined the Ticats a season later.
Which brings us to this week and Reinebold’s mission to put the Hamilton special teams pieces in all the right places on Sunday. The opposition’s special teams units are pretty formidable, too, and Reinebold respects Calgary in this regard.
“They’ve got all the aspects that you need to have great special teams,” he said. “They have tremendous workers. The guys that we’ll try and match up with are all competitive. They run, they’re physical, they’re extremely well coached.”
Hamilton head coach Kent Austin had said, of Banks, earlier this week, “I don’t think he’s gonna surprise Calgary.”
Reinebold agrees and won’t be at all shocked if Stampeders’ punter Rob Maver attempts to negate Banks as a factor.
“Maver is one of the better punters in the league at placing the ball. You can bet that they’ll try and punt the ball away from ‘Speedy’ (Banks) in the game on Sunday to try and lessen his opportunities to hurt ‘em.”
There are key match-ups aplenty to look forward to in this Sunday’s game and Reinebold believes the battle for the 102nd Grey Cup Championship will be won or lost in a narrowly constructed scenario.
“I think the game will come down to a couple of critical plays. Momentum changers. Typically, those come out of the special teams,” he said.
“We’ve just gotta try and make sure they come for us and not for them.”
If they do, in a game this size, Jeff Reinebold’s enthusiasm might be even more conspicuous than usual.
