Going out on top

Now that he has retired from the sidelines, it will be interesting to see if Wally Buono can truly let go of coaching while still active as a general manager.

Buono announced his retirement on Monday – rumoured to be a strong possibility all season and more so after he led the B.C. Lions to a Grey Cup win over Winnipeg on November 27 at B.C. Place Stadium.

Quite simply, Buono had done everything in his 22-year career, winning five Grey Cups – three with Calgary and two with B.C. – nine divisional championships and totaled more regular-season career wins than anybody else.

Whether Buono is actually the greatest coach in the history of the Canadian Football League is open for debate. Hugh Campbell won five in a row with Edmonton, and it’s a feat which will almost certainly never be duplicated. Don Matthews won five Grey Cups with four different teams, including winning three Cups in a row with two different teams. Frank Clair won five Cups in 19 seasons, ending his career with Cups in his last two seasons. Bud Grant won three in four seasons. Pop Ivy won three in a row with Edmonton. Teddy Morris won three in a row with Toronto. Marv Levy won two Cups in only five years in the CFL, all with one organization.

There are others with noteworthy accomplishments going even further back in time, but during a different era and with a totally different schedule before the Canadian Football League emerged as it exists now.

The fact Buono could sustain a relatively long standard of employment in two different stops is itself an accomplishment. He began in Calgary and remained there for 13 seasons, his ending terminated by an ownership that surely will go down as one of the wackiest in CFL history. The owner bought the team essentially so his son could play quarterback, even though he had an arm that didn’t have the capability of throwing beyond 20 yards with any true ability. In the end, Buono left the organization, in which he had also expanded his portfolio to include general manager, for B.C. He worked nine years as the Lions’ GM/head coach, and never missed the playoffs. What he did in 2011, taking a team that began with an 0-5 record and 1-6 after seven games and found a way to reverse the process and eventually win the Cup was nothing short of miraculous.

Again, if you put a bunch of people together and asked them to name the greatest coach in CFL history, Buono might not be atop everyone’s list. But if you ask them to name what may have been the greatest accomplishment by a coach to win the Cup, Buono’s 2011 season certainly has to be at or right near the top.

So Buono exists, much like baseball manager, Tony LaRussa, on top. LaRussa decided to leave the baseball world to enjoy whatever he decides to do. But Buono is remaining in the game, and his first appointment of business will to name a successor. It is common knowledge that he reveres defensive co-ordinator Mike Benevides like a son. Benevides has served Buono well, so if – and likely when – his appointment is made official, it will hardly be a surprise.

But how will Buono react if Benevides struggles? Will he feel the need to step in immediately if it doesn’t goes as well as planned? Look at what Ken Miller did in 2011, appointing a rookie head coach and then displacing him after only eight games when the team struggled with a 1-7 record.

Miller’s trigger finger is not unique. In 1995, Bob O’Billovich, then with Toronto, gave up his dual portfolio to concentrate on managing the team. Nine games into the season, Obie fired his replacement and returned to the sidelines.

These situations – and you can probably identify more with other teams and other leagues – point to the difficulty of leaving the game entirely versus giving up the coaching role to become solely the general manager. That will happen in Toronto in 2012 with Jim Barker slicing his role to solely manage the team and handing off the reins to a rookie head coach. The fact the Lions and Argos are owned by the same person and going through a similar change in football operations is merely a coincidence.

The point is, Wally Buono has decided coaching simply takes up too much time and energy time at a point in his life when he’d rather cut back on his schedule, although he’s not ready to walk away completely from the game .

It will be his patience more than this time that will be put to the test going forward.

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