Calgary Herald

CLAYBROOKS BRINGS SWAGGER TO WEST COAST

Former Stamps defensive co-ordinator vows to turn Lions into dominant team

- TODD SAELHOF tsaelhof@postmedia.com

DeVone Claybrooks is pushing championsh­ip pigskin on the West Coast.

That’s thanks to his time with the Calgary Stampeders. Eleven seasons with the most successful franchise in the Canadian Football League is bound to rub off on a guy.

And he spent Tuesday making sure to let everyone know the B.C. Lions will be a feared football team in the not so distant future.

“We’re not going to be Calgary of the west … we’re going to be the B.C. Lions of the west,” Claybrooks said during his introducti­on as newly appointed head coach of the Lions. “And I think other teams in the league should worry about us, honestly speaking. We have the tools at hand to be a successful franchise for years to come.

“We want to be dominant for a prolonged period of a time.”

Yup, Claybrooks and the Lions are already talking a big game.

This comes just hours after the former Stampeders defensive star, defensive line coach and defensive co-ordinator signed on to become the 26th head coach of the Lions.

Should Dave Dickenson and the Stamps be nervous about their standing atop the CFL?

“Of course … very nervous,” said Claybrooks, who brings a ‘game on’ attitude to his new post.

“Every other team should be, too, to be honest. I’m not trying to be brash or cocky, but you’ve got to have a certain swagger in this game, and we’re going to have it and our players are going to have it.”

Really, there’s no reason to expect otherwise from a disciple of John Hufnagel.

Good on him, in fact, to carry that kind of confidence into an organizati­on that has struggled for the last number of years.

And there’s no reason to believe the results in Vancouver will be any less successful than what Claybrooks is preaching — again, given that he’s fruit from the Huff tree.

The proof is in the pudding. Dickenson, Chris Jones and Rick Campbell — the head coaches of the Stamps, Saskatchew­an Roughrider­s and Ottawa Redblacks, all are Hufnagel disciples who went on to become Grey Cup champions.

“Huff has shown that he can groom first-year head coaches that are still in the league and that are still working now,” said Claybrooks, making sure to praise Huff — among others — for his ascent to the CFL’s head coaching ranks.

“My goal when I became a d-line coach was to become a defensive co-ordinator … I was lucky to be with Rick (Campbell) and (Rich Stubler), who did a great job to show me this is how you call a game, this is how you set it up, and this is how you break down a team. I have to pay homage to those guys, who took me under their wing, because I really don’t know what Huff saw in me in 2011 to say, ‘I can see you being a head coach in this league and a co-ordinator one day and you should think about coaching.’

“Eight years later, look at what’s happened now.”

It’s a move that shouldn’t surprise anyone. His near-dozen years with the Stampeders allowed Claybrooks to learn from some of the best coaches in football.

Yes, the Stamps fumbled away a couple of Grey Cups along the way, but without the leadership of Huff and those with whom he surrounded himself, they don’t get those championsh­ip opportunit­ies.

“I was fortunate and blessed to be brought up by an organizati­on that won for a decade on a consistent basis,” Claybrooks said. “So you understand from that what you like and what you don’t like.

“I’ve been fortunate to be surrounded by some great coaches and great mentors and friends that I can lean on to understand what I like from this guy or what I like from this other guy.”

And it all comes back to Hufnagel.

“Coach Huff runs a great program over there,” Claybrooks said. “He’s got everything in order of how he wants it run. Dave (Dickenson) reciprocat­es his message, and it goes from top to bottom. Any successful program or any considerab­le co-operation is going to have the same message preached from the top to the bottom. It’s got to be the same goals, right?”

Those goals?

Well, just as they have been for a decade at McMahon Stadium and for a few years now in Regina and Ottawa, they’ll now be preached in Vancouver.

Given Claybrooks’ entrance into the Lions Den on Tuesday, they’re, in fact, already being preached.

“The last man that came out from Calgary to come out west was here for a longtime,” Claybrooks added. “But this isn’t Wally Buono’s team anymore.

“This is DeVone Claybrooks’ team and you have to understand that. I’m not trying to fill Wally’s shoes. I’m wearing my own. I’m just going to forge my own legacy and my own standard of what we’re doing around here. ”

 ?? JASON PAYNE ?? Former Stampeders defensive co-ordinator DeVone Claybrooks says he plans to forge the Lions into a dominant force in the CFL. “Other teams in the league should worry about us,” says B.C.’s new head coach.
JASON PAYNE Former Stampeders defensive co-ordinator DeVone Claybrooks says he plans to forge the Lions into a dominant force in the CFL. “Other teams in the league should worry about us,” says B.C.’s new head coach.
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