Ford brings focus to SFU football
New coach intends to bring back UBC rivalry, end 33-loss streak
Thomas Ford was named head coach of the SFU Clan football team Monday and we hit him straight away with the tough question: Why do it?
Ford, a Seattle man who had been guiding the gridiron team at Stadium High School in Tacoma, Wash., was obviously looking to get back into the NCAA after three coaching stints there.
You’d think there were easier gigs available for him than taking over a Division 2 program that’s lost 33 consecutive games, with its last win coming Oct. 18, 2014.
In the midst of trying to turn around Canada’s lone NCAA program, Ford’s now also trying to recruit many of the same players as the UBC Thunderbirds, who won a Vanier Cup Canadian national championship in 2015.
“UBC has been phenomenal,” Ford said. “With the job they’ve done, it shows the talent that’s here. It means that I’m going to have to do a really good job at getting myself out to schools in B.C. and presenting our case.”
Ford, in fact, said he wants to help resurrect the Shrum Bowl, the UBCSFU game that had been mainstay on the Lower Mainland football calendar for years but hasn’t been played since 2010 because of scheduling conflicts.
“I want to find a way to do it,” Ford said. “I want to compare apples to apples.”
SFU athletics director Theresa Hanson told varsityletters.ca that she received 200 applications for the job after the school announced it wasn’t renewing Kelly Bates’s contract as coach after three winless campaigns.
Ford had been a star running back at Linfield College, helping the McMinnville, Ore., program to a 41-4 record during his time there, which included the 2004 NCAA Division 3 national title.
He went on to assistant coaching jobs at Linfield, Division 2 Southeastern Oklahoma State and Division 3 Puget Sound before taking on the head job at Stadium High in 2014.
Stadium went 0-10 in his inaugural campaign, but made steady progress and finished 6-4 in 2016, marking their first winning season since 1993.
“I look at this situation and this is a university that has all the tools to have a successful football program,” Ford said. “The keys are there. It’s about having the right person driving.
“I’m a small college guy. I take great pride in knowing about the small college programs in the northwest. I knew quite a bit about SFU before the job came open. There is a rich tradition here. They’ve been a successful program before. That was a selling point to me.
“I want to reach out to the coaches in B.C., and especially the SFU alumni who are coaching. I know there are a lot of SFU grads who are coaching high school football. To me, recruiting is about building relationships more than anything.”
Clan grads include former B.C. Lions stars Lui Passaglia, Glen Jackson, Nick Hebeler, Sean Millington and Angus Reid. Former CFL standouts like Doug Brown and Glen Suitor are also SFU products.
SFU moved to the NCAA in 2010. They were 5-6 in 2012 under Dave Johnson, but they’ve gone 5-45 in their last five seasons.
“If you spend too much time looking in the rear-view mirror, you’re going to crash,” Ford said. “I’m not going to focus on what happened before.
“I know at some point we will be measured by wins and losses, but right now, I just want to improve daily. I know we have to improve our roster size and make sure that the competition for spots at spring practice is hot and heavy.”
SFU had a 21-17 lead in the fourth quarter on the road against Western Oregon in their season finale on Nov. 11, but surrendered a touchdown at the 7:26 mark of the frame and ended up losing 24-21.
That was their closest game of the season. They were outscored by an average of 55-11 on the campaign.