Dyce puts his own stamp on Riders
Soft-spoken coach tries to get his team back on track after awful start
The new head coach of the Saskatchewan Roughriders — it would be incorrect to refer to Bob Dyce as interim, because everyone who has worked at the professional level shares that title more or less — has already quoted Thomas Edison and Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu in his first month on the job.
He has been called a great leader by the team’s president and a “rock star” by the interim general manager. And yes, anyone who lives in Regina and is associated with the Riders probably has achieved a similar cachet.
Dyce, 49, is not your average pro football coach. For starters, he’s the antithesis of the regimented and structured Corey Chamblin, the man he replaced on Aug. 31, after the Riders had lost all nine regular-season games to that juncture. Television cameras likely never will catch Dyce haranguing a player on the sidelines, as Chamblin was prone to do as the losses mounted.
Dyce is honest, personable and soft-spoken, and laughs easily — even if the object of that humour is himself. He’s one of only two Canadian-born head coaches in the Canadian Football League, along with Winnipeg’s Mike O’Shea. He studied economics at the University of Manitoba, where he played receiver and later coached the position with the Bisons. And Dyce certainly paid his dues. An assistant coach with the Blue Bombers and Saskatchewan since 2003, Dyce was forced to wait 13 years for his big break, getting it at the expense of someone who made him an offensive coordinator in 2012. Dyce was the Riders’ special teams coordinator at the time of Chamblin’s firing.
So this all comes with mixed emotions. “Bittersweet” is a word Dyce has used often the last month.
“You’re always striving for the next level. It’s not a matter of being content. When you’re in a role and you’re deeply invested in that role, you can have great satisfaction,” Dyce told The Montreal Gazette by telephone this week. “If someone were to ask me if I had a goal to be a head coach, I would have said yes.
“But it wasn’t something I was actively seeking,” added Dyce, who never applied or interviewed to become a team’s head coach — but someone who also hasn’t been unemployed since joining the Bombers as their receivers coach in 2003.
Almost immediately after replacing Chamblin, Dyce decided to play music prior to practice, while the players are stretching and warming up, ostensibly to lighten the mood. And then, knowing the Riders had dug themselves a virtually impossible 0-9 abyss, he quoted Edison, the American inventor, about opportunity. And he referred to Tzu, the ancient Chinese military general and strategist. Dyce had one of his quotes — “opportunities seized, multiply” — on his special-teams playbook in 2013.
Hey, when a team is 0-9, try anything. The Riders won Dyce’s coaching debut, against Winnipeg, but have since dropped a rematch to the Bombers and lost 30-27 to Ottawa — the seventh time this season the Riders have lost by four points or less.
“So many things get thrown around. In football, you hear the word ‘ opportunity’ — someone says that’s a missed opportunity or you have to take advantage of your opportunities,” Dyce said. “I tried to explain to the players the opportunities are there and we have to seize them. You don’t want to miss it because it’s hard work that’s going to enable you to take advantage of that opportunity.
“The more opportunities we seize, the better chance we have to win.”
Dyce never aspired to become a coach, believing he knew it all as a collegiate player and fearing, should he coach, he’d have a roomful of similar players. It was only after he traded in his pads for a whistle that he realized how willing and eager are most players to learn.
If Dyce was raised with a chip on his shoulder, it’s understandable. His father, Alton, died from a blood clot in his leg just shy of Dyce’s eighth birthday. Today, Dyce will tell you his brother-in-law, Rick Geyson, became his biggest influence and male role model. It was Geyson who played big brother and surrogate father all those years ago.
“It’s just the way he carries himself. He’s successful in his professional life. The father he’s been to my nieces and nephews ... the husband he’s been to my sister. As a man, he embodies what I think you should be,” Dyce said. “He’s always been there for me and my family.”
As Dyce will always be there for his players and assistants. He has learned along the way, watching, observing, listening, gleaning little pearls of wisdom from others, discarding things he wouldn’t repeat as a coach himself. The players will always know where they stand with him, honest to a fault, but without Chamblin’s edge.
“They’re going to get who I am. I can’t change all of a sudden because I’m the head coach,” he explained. “I’m going to be honest and tell you how I feel. I’m not a screaming, rahrah guy. I can’t change to try and be that guy.
“I’m going to demand — I shouldn’t say demand — I’m going to expect a lot of hard work, expect communication and us to be able to work together as a staff, from coaches to players. We’re going to work together to get this rectified.”
With the Riders at 1-11 heading into Sunday afternoon’s Mosaic Stadium game against the Alouettes, the season appears to be lost. But Dyce goes into every game expecting to win, regardless of the circumstances; expecting to get the most out of the players while putting them in situations to succeed.
He has no contract for next season, nor would he want a blindfold and smoke, believing neither are necessary. Sometimes, good things happen to good people, he must hope.
“I really don’t think a whole lot about next season. I’m trying to put every bit of effort I have — that’s what I owe the guys in the locker room — to try and win this week,” he said. “If I continue to do things correctly, I’m going to have an opportunity to coach. I believe, if I continue to work hard and do things to the best of my abilities, people are going to recognize that and there will be a place for me.
“Ideally it would be here.”