B.C. LIONS: TEDFORDS TACKLE COACHING GIGS
Head coach’s son embraces new quality-control role while learning the ropes in CFL
A lot of wannabe football coaches want the glory that goes with it without knowing the work it takes to get there.
Quinn Tedford, at 26 the youngest member of the B.C. Lions coaching staff, has no illusions about the profession he has chosen. You don’t start the day at nine in the morning, put in a shift and then be home by six for dinner.
“It’s crazy hours,” he explained at a news conference Tuesday to introduce the Lions’ 2015 coaching staff. “But, being a young kid, who grew up with a coach for a dad, in a football environment, I’ve had an interest in it as long as I can remember.”
When the Lions hired his dad, Jeff Tedford, to be their head coach on Dec. 19, the Canadian Football League club took on the son as a “quality control” coach, a glorified gofer.
The Lions have two such coaches under the Jeff Tedford regime — Quinn Tedford on offence and former CFL defensive back Williams Fields on defence. Fields, who’s 36, spent last season coaching at Simon Fraser University. He’s left his wife, Michelle, and 15-year-old son, Levi, behind in Houston for a foot in the door with the Lions, a job somewhere between an intern and a full-fledged position coach. “I always want to take steps forward,” Fields said. “Eventually, I’d like to be a defensive backs coach, a (defensive) co-ordinator someday.”
Quinn Tedford, a reserve wide receiver at the University of California from 2008 to 2011, when his dad coached there, understood that his entry-level position comes with long hours, little pay and even less recognition. But he understands the importance of his role, if he hopes to follow his dad one day into the family business. Learning a CFL or NFL system from the ground level is a necessary part of that education.
“They’re the guys who are doing all the detailed work, multi-tasking, breaking down video, coaching and analyzing data,” said Jeff Tedford. “It’s a great opportunity for them to learn, to understand the game and learn from the (veteran) coaches around them. It’s a great opportunity. But they have to be hard workers, and willing to work all hours.”
While the terminology is new to the CFL, quality-control coaches have been an integral part of the expansive coaching staffs in the NFL and the NCAA Division I ranks for decades. Bill Belichick, the mastermind of the New England Patriots’ latest Super Bowl victory, started out as an unpaid assistant with the Baltimore Colts in 1975. Because he was so good at his job, the Colts started paying him $25 a week.
Now his son, Steve Belichick, 27, is a third-year Patriots coaching assistant. Likewise, Nate Carroll, also 27, joined the Seahawks’ organization in 2010 as an assistant wide receivers coach when his dad, Pete Carroll, left USC for Seattle.
After graduation from Cal, Quinn Tedford got his first quality-control job at UC-Davis under Ron Gould, who was his dad’s running backs coach with the Golden Bears. Now Quinn will be working closely with Lions receivers coach Khari Jones, a record-setting quarterback with the Aggies who was inducted into the UC-Davis Hall of Fame.
“It’s grunt work,” Quinn said. “We’ll do whatever’s asked of us to make the coaches’ job easier. But you don’t count the hours when you’re having fun. And, for me, that means being around football — and my dad. The chance to work with him is a bonus.”