Battling Briton having a big impact with Dinos
When he tells them to “get strapped,” they know what he means now. Get taped up.
When he orders them to “go to the back of the queue,” they know what he means now. Back of the line.
When he refers to their “kits,” they know what he means now. Their uniforms.
And when Damian Jennings makes a half-time request “to show your brand of basketball ... to leave a lasting impression,” well, they know what that means, too.
A week ago, that had been the first-year coach’s stern instruction to the Calgary Dinos, who, at one point, were trailing the homecourt Victoria Vikes by a whopping 21 points. While the quirky speech habits of Jennings, an Englishman, are good for the occasional giggle, this command was chuckle-free and straightforward.
And understood perfectly.
The Dinos rallied smartly, prevailing in overtime to boost their Canada West women’s basketball record to 9-1. Not bad for an outfit that no one was taking seriously a few months ago. A surprise? “It’s become a surprise because everyone is telling me it’s a good start,” says Jennings, who, this weekend, is leading the squad into an exhibition series against the University of Montana Western in Dillon, Mont. “The characters on this team are wonderful. There’s a great chemistry and dynamic in this group. But at the very beginning, they didn’t know how to win, how to compete ... I mean, on the floor, winning loose balls, rebounds — possession-game stuff. This is a bedrock of what you should have. “This is something that they’ve bought into, and I’m feeling quite proud of their development.” Taking over from Shawnee Harle — who, after 17 seasons, joined Basketball Alberta — Jennings arrived with his own blueprint. He demands three things from his charges — dedication to fitness, commitment to defence, willingness to scrap.
So when the Dinos had been flagging badly in Victoria, he simply reminded them.
“That’s one strong point of our team —we always battle back,” guard Megan Schaufele says. “Damian is a great leader in that respect.”
Despite being only 33, Jennings has coached for more than a decade.
A gung-ho guard, he had played semi-pro in England, while suiting up for Cardiff Metropolitan University in Wales. But showing off one day — attempting, without warm-up, a bench-press lift — he dislocated his shoulders. (“Popped both out the back.”) At 21, he retired.
For a full-throttle chap, that meant one thing — pointing his energy in a new direction. His studies, in this case.
And while the bench-press stunt had been foolish, it was not entirely regrettable.
“Like one of these cliched things you tend to read in autobiographies, I don’t think I’d be here if it wasn’t for that type of incident,” he says. “I wasn’t a wonderful athlete or a basketball player, but I really believed in maximizing potential. The lessons I learned I was able to channel into academics, where I was known more as a jock than anything else.”
Soon enough he was a senior lecturer at Cardiff, while spreading his wings into three national programs in England — under-20 head coach, World University Games head coach, Olympic team assistant.
After the Summer Games in London, Jennings knew he’d want another challenge.
The University of Calgary became his breath of fresh air, while he, in turn, became the players’.
“It’s cool, the new ideas he’s bringing, especially from Europe,” says Schaufele. “We respect him enough that he can flick the switch and be more friendly and social. And then he also flicks the switch when we need to buckle down. But he never yells. I like that in a coach. It’s nice.”
Quietly the Dinos swept their first conference weekend. Then their second. Then their third. Not till their fourth sweep were they admitted into the Canadian Interuniversity Sport’s rankings.
The locals never got huffy about the snub, though.
“Given the fact that two of the best scorers and contributors — Megan Lang and Jenna Kaye — graduated last year, I have a feeling that most people were thinking, ‘Not much is going to happen in Calgary,’” says Jennings. “That was fair ... we weren’t anyone yet.”
Now the Dinos sit No. 7 in the country.
“People didn’t think we were going to do much,” says guard Tamara Jarrett. “Especially with a new coach, people thought, ‘OK, it’s a wash year.’ People definitely underestimated us.”