Perry Lefko

Perry Lefko keeps you connected to all the news in the CFL on Sportsnet.ca.

Eleven years after being locked out, Jim Barker returns to the Toronto Argonauts.

The last time Jim Barker worked as head coach of the Toronto Argonauts, the ownership changed after only a year on the job. He found out his time had come to an end when the locks to the offices of the football operations had been replaced.

Well, that was 11 years ago and the Argos' ownership situation is only slightly less bizarre.

The current owners are in the process of selling the team to another owner, who already owns a Canadian Football League team.

But this is the CFL, and the one positive is that the Argos will be owned by somebody this year.

Barker is comfortable enough with the team's president and general manager that he was willing to give up security as the senior vice-president of football operations with the Calgary Stampeders, a franchise with solid ownership.

"It seems whenever I'm in Toronto, there's some kind of sale or something like that," Barker joked on Tuesday, when formally introduced as the Argos' head coach.

This is his third stint as a head coach in the CFL and second with the Argos.

After the 1999 season, Barker's first with the Argos with whom he fashioned a 9-9 regular-season record and made it to the East semi-final, Belgium brewery Interbrew S.A., sold the franchise to New York insurance mogul Sherwood Schwarz. He was a neophyte in the world of running a sports business and hired the venerable - and enigmatic - J.I. Albrecht to run the team. It was a disaster, and into his fourth year with the team Schwarz stopped paying the bills and had the franchise revoked. The keys to the team were figuratively thrown into the lap of the CFL.

Barker follows Bart Andrus, who was fired after finishing last in the CFL with a 3-15 record in his first - and last - season with the Argos, and contributed to the current ownership seeking to sell the team after a six-year run.

Barker has gone through a myriad of jobs since his first go-round in Toronto, including a stint as head coach of the Calgary Stampeders in 2003. The team was owned by California corrugated box tycoon Michael Feterik, who was as adept at running a football team as Schwarz, which is to say not very well. Feterik had a son, Kevin, who played quarterback in U.S. college and wanted him to be the starter at the professional level, even though he didn't have the ability, nor the arm strength. The elder Feterik hired an individual, Fred Fateri, who had no legitimate football experience, to run the team.

Barker lasted all of a season before he was fired as part of a purge that included various changes in the football and business operations.

"In 2003 I went through as bad a head coaching experience as anybody could," he said. "It was a great learning experience and I needed to take a step back."

So he branched into management and player personnel with Calgary beginning in 2005 under a new ownership group, one that offered stability and, in a word, sanity. He celebrated a championship two years ago with head coach John Hufnagel, who had final say on football matters.

This past off-season he took a month-long trip to New Zealand and had no electronic contact with the outside world. He used the time to evaluate his life and decided it was time for a change. He interviewed for the vacant GM job in Winnipeg, and made it to the final two. Then the Argo job presented itself.

The opportunity was perfect because of team president Bob Nicholson, who rejoined the team after a 10-year absence, and GM Adam Rita, whom he had known through the football wars in the CFL. When Rita left the Argos as offensive co-ordinator following the 1996 season, in which the Argos won the Grey Cup, to become the head coach in B.C., Barker joined the Argos as the co-offensive co-ordinator.

And now, similar to Nicholson and Rita, he is back.

"Sometimes you leave not on your own terms, but now he's back on his own terms," Rita said. "I'm sure he's the best choice for us in Toronto. I'm really super excited to work with a guy who is going to roll up his sleeves and be active in the (player personnel) process."

Barker said it's a "perfect time and a perfect place and a perfect situation" for him. So with the likelihood of B.C. Lions' owner David Braley taking over the ownership of the Argos, Barker is happy to be back in a place where he was literally locked out.

"I wouldn't know Sherwood Schwarz or J.I. Albrecht if they walked through that door," he said. "I never really got fired. I never felt like it was unfinished business. When it was sold, it was a different team. Everything works out exactly as it should. At that time (after the ownership change) it wasn't a great deal of fun to have the key not work in the door. It was a disappointment, but you move forward and you learn from it. Everything has prepared me for this. I'm 53 years old and I am so excited about the opportunity to work with (Rita and Nicholson)."

The three of them are proof you can come back to Toronto - regardless of who is the ownership - although Barker is hoping the key to the football operations won't be changed again after a year.