They’re Brady’s bunch now
This is the story of a man named Brady.
It’s the story of a man who, long before he was to become McMaster’s new defensive co-ordinator, was a receiver and running back sitting on the grass at one of the university’s high school football camps. Listening intently as then-Mac coach Greg Marshall talked to the aspiring gridiron stars.
“The one thing I remember and always think of now is one of the best things I’ve heard,” Scott Brady says. “People say, ‘I’ll start tomorrow, I’ll start tomorrow.’ But if you really want something, then start right now. Why wait for tomorrow?”
It was a life-altering epiphany. It changed how he thought and acted in all kinds of ways. It even explains how he’s ended up in Hamilton taking a job some would say might be the toughest in Canadian university football.
There are only 27 head coaching jobs at the university level in Canada. He had one of those. Since 2016, he was the top guy at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick. Meanwhile, by Brady’s own assessment, Mac head coach Greg Knox has been the best defensive co-ordinator in the country for the better part of a decade. Which the stats and the results back up. So why in the world would he leave what he had to come to a school where there’s seemingly nowhere to go but down and the guru of defensive gurus will be looking over your shoulder every day?
We return you to Marshall’s message from that day long ago.
“You could look at it from that standpoint (that these are) big shoes to full,” Brady says. “But the approach I had is, if I was going to leave a spot where I was really happy, I was going to go to the place where I felt was going to be the most beneficial for me in terms of learning and improving as a coach.”
You want to be better? Go work with the best. And if you’re going to do it someday, why wait? Do it today.
Of course, that’s only the first of the challenges facing him as the Marauders kick off their season on Sunday at home against Guelph (3 p.m. at Ron Joyce Stadium, on TV on Cable 14). The group he’s inherited is incredibly young. Not one of his starting front seven have started a game in university before.
“It’s a pretty unique challenge,” he acknowledges.
Not, completely unheard of, mind you. He was at Mount Allison for a decade in a variety of roles including player and championship-winning defensive co-ordinator before becoming head coach. In one of those years as defensive co-ordinator, he had eight true freshmen starting. So he knows this story a bit.
What it means is that rather than primarily being a strategist and game caller, his top priorities are that of teacher and psychologist. Establishing in the minds of his players that McMaster has incredibly high expectations without crushing them under the weight of that.
A young man messes up on a play or a series? He has to be corrected, toughened but also encouraged. It’s a delicate balance.
“You’re teaching the football skills, but you’re also teaching ‘Here’s how you prepare for an opponent, here’s how it’s supposed to look in drill work, here’s a template we have to practise at to be successful,’ ” he says. “It’s a tough line to toe.”
In the midst of all this tricky footing, whose defence will he be running? His? Or Knox’s?
Neither, he says. He’ll be running McMaster’s defence. Which really is Knox’s in many ways. But, he says there are core principals beyond any one person’s style that have worked exceptionally well for years. He’ll bring a few wrinkles from his experience while still getting input from the boss.
He doesn’t want to change things and put his stamp on things? To build a resume for another head coaching gig down the way?
“It would be ridiculous,” he says.
“Mac’s been so successful on defence, it would be nothing other than ego to come in and say, ‘It has to be this way.’ ”
All this said, you can’t help but keep coming back to the overwhelming challenge he faces of taking over a job that’s been done so well at a school that’s built a track record of elite performance while the guy who constructed much of that remains in place.
Brady doesn’t back down. He says he wants expectations. He doesn’t want to be coaching somewhere that a win or two is considered pretty good. He says he’s not interested in receiving participation ribbons and getting a pat on the head for trying hard. He wants the vice to be squeezing. Even if he knows there might be some pain along the way.
“I think there’s an understanding it’s going to take time,” he says. “It’s not going to happen overnight. But you still expect it to happen.”