The once-proud franchise is bringing back a winning mentality to Commonwealth Stadium.
EDMONTON -- Where was Ricky Ray back in 1980, the last time the Edmonton Eskimos started a season with five straight wins?
"Well, I was born in '79," Ray said Thursday morning. "So I guess I was back in Happy Camp, California (his birth place). I have no idea what I was doing."
Some 32 years later, Ray is once again a Happy Camper, pulling the levers on a surprising 4-0 start by his Eskimos, with the 1-3 Toronto Argos in town Friday night.
This is about more than four wins, however, here in Edmonton. It is about a once-proud organization that had completely lost its way in recent seasons. Missing playoffs, firing coaches, even mulling over Ray himself, who stands just 40 completions shy of 3,000 in his career.
"I wanted to be here, to be part of getting this thing going in the right direction," Ray said after the Eskimos walk-through on Thursday. "I knew (leaving) that was definitely a possibility -- with changes, everyone is up for evaluation. I just wanted to be here.
"I couldn’t imagine playing anywhere else."
So Ray reworked his contract in the off-season, and slowly, with ex-Eskimo defensive back Kavis Reed at head coach, the Eskimo Way is returning to Commonwealth Stadium. It should have taken much longer for success on the field to follow, but somehow, the two have chased each other through the early days of the 2011 season.
"I’ve played for some coaches who say, 'We want to win,’ and that’s about it," Ray said of Reed. "He’s come in and said, 'We’re going to win, this is how we’re going to do it, and this is the kind of football team we want you to be.’
"We’ve really been able to focus in and say, 'OK, these are the keys.’"
The "keys" on offence are in Ray’s hands, as the Eskimos have averaged 32 points per game. On the other side of the ball, defensive co-ordinator Rich Stubler -- on his third tour of duty in Edmonton -- has built a defence that has made first Saskatchewan’s Darian Durant, then Hamilton’s Kevin Glenn, then B.C's Travis Lulay and most recently Calgary’s Henry Burris, look confused and unproductive
"It all started with that first game in Regina. We found out how to win in a tough environment," said offensive lineman Aaron Fiacconi.
What the Eskimos players also found, was a coach they could believe in. In Reed, a first-time head coach, the Eskimos have a genuine person who holds himself to the same standards as he holds his players.
You’ll recall the 2009 Grey Cup, when Saskatchewan had too many men on the field for that crucial late field goal attempt by Montreal? In the post-game Roughriders locker room there was one man who stood up in front of the cameras and took blame for the mistake that lost the Roughriders the Cup.
It wasn’t the player. It was the Riders’ special teams coach, Reed.
"Accountability," Reed said Thursday when asked what his primary goal was inside the Eskimos’ room. "From the top down."
That has not been the Eskimo Way for a while now, which is central to the crumbling of a term that was once synonymous in these parts with Grey Cup parades.
Maybe that is why all of these newcomers and rookies -- the very element that had most people picking the Eskimos for last place in the West this season -- have taken to Reed’s leadership so quickly.
"Our youth is very energetic. They don’t have any history here," assessed Fiacconi, a fifth-year Eskimo who missed the playoffs in two of four seasons. "We had some tough history, and none of that baggage is here (for the newcomers). All they know is what is expected of them, and that’s to play Eskimo football.
"Eskimo football is blue collar, hard-working, never quit, play-to-the-whistle, punish-your-opponent football."
And now, for the first time in a long while, Eskimos football is winning football.
All but 10 of the Eskimos’ 46 players weren’t even born in 1980 when Edmonton last went 5-0 out of the gates. Of those 10, seven had yet to celebrate their first birthday.
The 1-4 Argos stand between Edmonton and a significant tie to that 1980 team, perhaps the best team this franchise ever produced, right in the middle of a five-year Grey Cup dynasty.
Yes, Grey Cup.
The Eskimos have found their way into the same sentence with the Grey Cup again. Yes, it’s been a long while.
