Paul LaPolice is a survivor.
He is the lone member of the Toronto Argonauts’ infamous 2000 coaching staff headed up by quirky Coach John Huard to still be involved in professional sports.
Many, if not all, of that original rag-tag group whom Huard assembled are not even involved in coaching at any level.
But this Sunday LaPolice has a chance to participate in the Grey Cup as the receivers coach of the Saskatchewan Roughriders, who play the Winnipeg Blue Bombers at the Rogers Centre.
Who would have ever predicted this for LaPolice going way back?
LaPolice still refers to Huard as Coach, the ultimate reverence term in football. Once a coach, always a coach. The relationship that Huard and LaPolice had was not nearly as prickly as what the head coach had with his players, who never understood his character, personality or methodology. To many he was just a weird dude, whose resignation after eight games with a record of 1-6-1 had no-one crying upon his departure. If anything, there were celebrations.
Yet LaPolice would not be in this position now were it not for Huard plucking him from a non-descript Division III school in the U.S. LaPolice made it to the pro level, even if it was a season of mediocrity and uncertainty.
LaPolice talked to Roughriders’ star rush end Fred Perry, who was a player with the 2000 team, about the journey from that season to now.
“I said, ‘Fred, it’s been a long eight years,'” he said.
LaPolice stayed with the Argos through to the end of the 2001 season after Michael (Pinball) Clemons, who became a player/head coach after Huard’s departure, kept him on staff. It was a positive indicator that Clemons saw something beyond the association with Huard.
A change in coaches in 2002 led to an interesting journey that brought LaPolice to this moment. LaPolice became the offensive co-ordinator of the Bombers, a pressure-cooker of a job in a city mad about football, and in his first season the team posted gawdy passing numbers. Receiver Milt Stegall set a CFL record for touchdown receptions and won the CFL Oustanding Player Award. Stegall and star running back Charles Roberts were both hurt in the division final and the Bombers lost by three points. The next year the Bombers exited in the first round.
The team did not hire him back and he hooked on with the lowly Hamilton Tiger-Cats as a receivers coach. He worked for two years and was not re-hired. He returned to Toronto as an assistant last year, working for Clemons again and for the first time with offensive co-ordinator Kent Austin, who was fired midway into the year. When Austin resurfaced as head coach of the Roughriders after the 2006 season, he hired LaPolice to oversee the receivers.
LaPolice thinks eight years is a long time to get to the Cup as a member of a coaching staff.
“I would think over five years you’d make it,” he said. “I think part of my thing is I’ve been in some transitional organizations, if you think about it. Even here, this is transitional; this is a new organization. Our players have really responded, they’ve played well. It’s been good.
“I think I’ve been lucky in my career, but part of that is what you do and how you coach and how you handle yourself,” he added. “If I would not have had a second opportunity the second year in Toronto I don’t think I could ever come back in the league because people would say, ‘He was with that crazy year with Coach Huard, right?’ I wouldn’t say I had much of a career (at that point) as a CFL coach. I was learning the CFL as I went along. I didn’t have a CFL career, at least, to ruin. For whatever reason it worked out, Pinball kept me on. It’s worked.”
Having come so far, he can appreciate what it will be like to participate in the Cup.
“The pre-game will be pretty neat and fun,” he said. “Right before the game and the national anthem and all that stuff is fun. You go through those 20 something times a year, but how many of those are for the Grey Cup? I think that will be an enjoyable time.”
Spoken like a survivor.
