Ex-CFLers mentor women on gridiron
Former CFLers taking over coaching responsibilities on short-term basis
Ideally, if Wes Lysack and Keith Crawford do their jobs well, they won’t last in their new positions with the Calgary Rage for long. At least, that’s the goal.
It’s not that the former CFL players aren’t loving their new roles as the co-head coaches of Calgary’s only elite women’s tackle football program. They definitely are.
But if everything goes according to plan, Crawford and Lysack will be able to pass on enough of their knowledge to the women currently playing for the Rage that one day soon one of the players will be able to take over the coaching reins themselves.
“We took this job to coach our way our of the job,” said Crawford, who made his name on the field with both the Toronto Argonauts and Hamilton Tiger-Cats. “That’s the dream, to see women coaching at this level, and this is a high level. This is almost a higher level than high school football right now.
“We’ve taken the job to get ourselves fired.”
The Rage compete in the eightteam Western Women’s Canadian Football League and finished atop the 2018 Western Conference standings with a 3-1 record.
Lysack, who won a Grey Cup with the Calgary Stampeders as a defensive back in 2008, said at a news conference to announce his hiring on Thursday that he hadn’t been 100 per cent sure what to expect when he was considering accepting the head coach/defensive co-ordinator job with the Rage, but he’s been blown away by the quality of the women and their commitment to the team.
“I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but I turned around and there’s some really good football being played,” Lysack said. “It’s really high quality football. It really is.”
Currently, the class of the WCFL are the two Saskatchewan-based teams in Regina and Saskatoon who have combined to win the last eight championships.
The Rage, though, believe the gap is closing and that the pieces are in place for them to unseat the Saskatchewan teams and bring home the trophy soon.
Ultimately, whether it’s men or women playing on the field, a championship is still the goal.
“The reason that you should be passionate about football is you’re one and done,” Lysack said. “You play and you win or you lose, and these women get it. It’s about winning a championship. The teams in Saskatchewan are phenomenal and we want to get to that level and we will. I’ve never heard anyone say they have fun losing.”
So win a championship and help get female players ready to take over coaching positions. Those are the big goals for Lysack and Crawford.
Fortunately, there’s already been progress on the coaching front.
Former linebacker Tamara Delong was a star on the field and coached last season at William Aberhart High School. A track star growing up, Delong would have loved to have played football, but opportunities just weren’t there.
The Rage gave her that chance, and she emerged as a force on the field.
Now, Lysack and Crawford want to make sure she can excel on the sideline, too.
“It’s amazing, they’re bringing their CFL knowledge. They’re pros, but they still want us to coach,” Delong said. “They come in and coach and they want us to learn to coach and then take their jobs, it’s unbelievable.”