BUONO PULLS NO PUNCHES
Legendary Lions head coach talks about influences, the NFL, and his final season
The numbers are beyond crazy. Wally Buono has coached or played in 14 Grey Cup games, won seven of them and has been around the CFL for 45 years as a linebacker, punter, assistant coach, head coach, general manager, team president and now back for the last hurrah, his final season coaching the B.C. Lions.
It’s a lifetime for some, a coaching lifetime that will end when this season does. He has won 276 games, more than any head coach in CFL history, more than any head coach in pro football history, except Don Shula, George Halas and Bill Belichick. And not to be the least bit underrated, but probably appreciated, is he has accomplished all that as a Canadian, in a league historically dominated by American coaches and managers.
Buono was an immigrant kid who grew up not speaking English in Montreal. Italian was his language. His mother cried when he left home for Idaho State University. What kind of decision was that when he had a construction job waiting for him after high school? Who thinks that way?
But he played at Idaho State, then for the Montreal Alouettes in that unusual combination of linebacker and punter. He followed that by moving from assistant coach in Montreal and Calgary to a headcoaching position that changed his life — and the lives of so many that have played for him over the years.
Postmedia spoke with the 68-year-old Buono on Thursday before Saturday’s game in Toronto.
Q As you approach what might be your last game coaching in Toronto, what comes to mind about games played here? A
“Two things come to mind. One good, one bad. The good was the ’92 Grey Cup game. We had a dominant win. The bad came from a 1990 game against the Argonauts. The great people of SkyDome decided not to take out the pitching mound, home plate, and second base for the game. They just put turf over it. And we got whipped (final score 70-13). It was a staggering defeat. Nothing was right about that game, our play or the field.”
Q Who have been the great influences of your career? A
“There’s so many people you learn from. I think you learn as much from the people doing things wrong as you do from the people doing things right. You learn what not to do. But I would say I learned the most in a positive sense from Marv Levy, who was obviously a great coach and a great director of people. From Rod Rust, who was very, very different, and a real people person. From Joe Galat, in his own way, who always tried to make football fun even though there was a seriousness to it. And from Dick Roach, who worked for Marv. He’s from a great football family.”
Q You never got the opportunity to coach in the NFL. Does that bother you? A
“People find you. You don’t have to find them. If they think you have value, they’ll find you. There’s no borders in this. To me, I have no regrets about that. Did I want to chase the dream? Obviously at some point you think about coaching in the best league in the world. But is that something that bothered me? No. Did I stress about it? No. Did I ever want to chase it? No. I wasn’t willing to put my family through that. The CFL has rewarded me and my family personally and financially. I have no regrets about this life at all.”
Q I’m told today’s athletes are different. You’ve been coaching for a quarter of a century; your thoughts on today’s athletes? A
“Behaviour hasn’t changed. Expectations have changed. How you were brought up, how you brought up your kids, that’s all changed. What society deems as right and wrong has changed. Players, bless them, still want to win, still want to achieve, still hate running conditioning drills. But today you have to do it differently. The athlete, his expectations are different. They feel like they’re owed an explanation (for everything). You almost have to prove things to them. The whole trust element is totally different. When I started, if you were the coach, you were the trust person. Now you have to earn that trust and respect.”
Q Do athletes and coaches have to like each other? A
“They don’t have to like you. You don’t have to like them. You’re not there to be liked. They’re not there to be liked. It’s all about production.”
Q Your first head-coaching job, you took over the almost bankrupt Calgary Stampeders. How did you make that work? A
“I feel like we surrounded ourselves with good people. I feel like we changed the culture of the team. I believe God, in his own way, blessed me. Many times I asked: why me, why not someone else? But at the end of it, we never had any money, we were always in receivership, we always struggled to pay the players. It’s a tremendous credit to that football team and organization that we got through that. We weren’t sure we could pay the players. At times, we put money on our own credit cards, and I’m talking large sums of money so we could do things.”
Q Buono on the difficulty facing the three largest CFL cities. A
“Be careful how you portray this. The three biggest cities may be more cosmopolitan and way more international. We’re not just talking about finances, arts, diversification in population, sophistication. When you come downtown in Vancouver, you could be in Hong Kong or Paris or another international city. When you go to Montreal, you could be almost anywhere in Europe. Toronto, to me, feels like a major American city. The separation in the three markets are there, and we as a country have become so global, and the young people are global that I think it affects our game. When you look at TV numbers, people are still watching the game. Wherever I go, and I go a lot of places, I am very recognizable, people are talking football with me. But you don’t see that translated to the stands. There’s a lot of reasons for that. Say you’re in Vancouver, and you live in Abbotsford or Langley or Surrey, and there’s a weeknight game, are you going to go home after work, are you going to fight traffic, are you going to pay for parking that’s gouging for high prices? Or are you going to sit down, have your dinner and watch the games on TV? I believe deep down they’re what I call paci-fans.”
Q Buono on being an innovator and changing the offences in CFL, which led to changes in the passing game in the NFL. A
The NFL gets way too much credit for opening up the offensive game. Who started that? Me, John Hufnagel and Jeff Tedford did. We didn’t have a good offensive line in Calgary. We came up with the five pack and six pack of receivers and getting the ball. We revolutionized the offensive game. When we did it, hardly anybody said anything about it. When they (the NFL) did it, they were being creative. Same thing with the goalposts. We move the goalposts back and nobody says a word about it. The NFL follows us and does it and they’re the great innovators. Our league, for whatever reason, just isn’t appreciated as much. I understand the NFL has the greatest players. We have some great athletes doing great things here. The NFL wouldn’t want Bear Woods or Solomon Elimimian and Adam Bighill. All great football players. For a lot of reasons, a lot of great football players don’t make the NFL ... Unfortunately, it’s easy for the NFL to sell itself. It’s in American culture. High-school football Friday. College football Saturday. NFL on Sunday. We don’t have that. They have money, we don’t. They have population, we don’t. They have technology, we don’t. But I like our game better. I always will.”
Q About his final game in Toronto Saturday against the Argos. A
“It might not be my last game. It’s my last game of the regular season. But we might be the crossover team in the playoffs. And who knows, we might be playing them. I’m not thinking about this as my last game. I’m not retired yet. If I answer that question like it’s something final (for me) then I’m already retired.”