National Post (National Edition)
Hervey hopes to lead CFL's global scouting
Ed Hervey was an early adopter of the Canadian Football League's global strategy, and his enthusiasm for it hasn't waned.
Then general manager of the B.C. Lions, Hervey flew to Mexico City in January 2019 for the league's first international combine and draft. The Lions were one of just three CFL teams to have both head coach and GM on site — Calgary and Winnipeg the others — signalling their support for the so-called 2.0 initiative, which was taking tentative steps forward.
The CFL subsequently signed working agreements with football entities in 14 countries, held a modest European draft in March 2019, added global players to the active roster, hired director of global scouting Greg Quick, staged nine more international combines, and will on Thursday conduct its first truly global draft, with 297 players from 25 countries eligible for selection.
The next item of business on the global file — though it won't happen for a couple of months at least — will be hiring a successor for Quick, who joined the Montreal Alouettes on Feb. 11 as an assistant coach. Hervey, who resigned from the Lions last October, said he wants to be considered a candidate.
“First and foremost, I have a real affection for the CFL and the efforts being made by the CFL to expand and grow from the grassroots level all the way up to the international stage,” he said from his home in Edmonton.
“Right or wrong, I'm a big outside-the-box thinker. I believe that's the type of vision you need to have. We can no longer feel that the only source of players is in North America. We have to believe and know that football has expanded beyond our borders and we have to be willing to go find those players. I have a belief in the broader vision of what the league is trying to accomplish with this initiative.”
Serious candidates will need that kind of vision.
“I'd like someone who understands the global initiative because I think that's important for the next step,” said CFL head of football operations Greg Dick, who will co-ordinate the candidate search in co-operation with fellow league operations staff and team general managers.
“If you just worked in the United States, you may not think that way. You may have a more closed-minded viewpoint of what football is going to look like in the future. So that will be important.”
Quick's skill set, experience and open mind made him perfect for the position.
“He was a coach and he had been an administrator in the NCAA and he'd been a head coach, defensive co-ordinator and position coach,” said Dick. “He brought a really different perspective than some of the scouts we interviewed. The scouts, not all of them have as wide a range of experience as Greg had, and it's important for us to develop relationships with these international partners so that they work with us. Greg had that ability. He checked all the boxes, and was able to write some scouting reports that met the needs of the GMs. That was a big thing.
“The other thing is, having a coach in that position, the federations want us to help them in any way to develop football in their country and coaching clinics is part of the development. I had GQ do all these coaching clinics, which helped with our relationship and our partnership.
“So it will be interesting when we look at this next group of candidates. I actually think ex-general managers could be good or ex-football operations people would be good as well. They may not have been scouts, but they have obviously scouted.”
That would point to people like Eric Tillman, who resigned as Hamilton's GM in January 2019 with an apparent intention to join the Atlantic Schooners' front office, and to Hervey, who has been a player, head scout and general manager. He knows the CFL inside out and believes he can competently head up a centralized scouting service for all nine teams.
Hervey said there are no issues that would prevent him from working with B.C. president Rick LeLacheur and co-general managers Rick Campbell and Neil McEvoy, but would not discuss the specifics of his departure.