New era for CFL in Ottawa
Desjardins introduced as general manager
Michelle Desjardins believes the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group has made an excellent choice of general manager to build Ottawa’s fledging CFL team from scratch, and she would know better than anyone.
As the wife of new Ottawa GM Marcel Desjardins, she’s been in the rental cars day and night, often manning the wheel while the now exMontreal Alouettes assistant general manager worked away from the passenger seat on his laptop, inputting scouting reports on players he had just seen.
“We’d be going from one NFL camp to another and we’d have some pretty long drives and share the driving,” said Michelle, part of a large Desjardins family contingent on hand for the big announcement. “There were times we’d both be sticking our heads out the window trying to stay awake at the wheel, or both looking for the next Starbucks, hoping for a much-needed coffee.
“I would just watch him at work and I was very proud of him and what he was doing.”
All that hard work, the kind that so seldom gets noticed by anyone except those in the business, paid off Wednesday with the formal announcement by OSEG partners Jeff Hunt, Roger Greenberg, William Shenkman, John Ruddy and John Pugh that Marcel Desjardins would be entrusted with building a team for the July 2014 CFL kickoff at the rebuilt Lansdowne Park.
For his part, Desjardins already has a guiding philosophy he hopes will result in long-term success in the capital.
“We need to make Ottawa the most desirable destination for players and we need to build through the draft and develop our own players,” said Desjardins.
“I am going to surround myself with quality people and the football operations staff will assemble the best possible talent.”
Hunt said he simply wants Desjardins to emulate the success of the Alouettes, with whom Desjardins earned three Grey Cup rings.
“We want to build toward a contender and by the second year be more competitive and in the third year compete with the best and possibly for the Grey Cup,” said Desjardins. “Will we get there? Possibility. But that’s what we will aim for.”
The Desjardins hiring comes with a glowing endorsement from former CFL executive and longtime NFL scout Dan Rambo, who consulted with Hunt throughout the interview process. Near the end, Hunt and Rambo just looked across a table, both with Desjardins at the top of their lists, and the decision was made right then and there.
The only thing left was details of a contract: Four years, including the set-up year of 2013.
“I’ve never been a process so thorough,” said Hunt, now listed as the president of sports for the OSEG. “And if ownership has its way, this will be the only major football decision we ever have to make as owners.
“Marcel was the clear and distinct favourite for the job.”
Desjardins, 46, learned the football business the best way one can: From the grassroots up.
He earned a commerce degree at Laurentian University while also studying sports administration and interned with the Ontario Hockey League’s Sudbury Wolves, where his duties included writing game notes, supervising the media room and helping out with promotional activities.
“I just remember him has a hard worker that always got the job done,” said longtime Wolves front office executive Blaine Smith. “It’s no surprise he has risen to that level of management.”
Desjardins also spent time in Ottawa working with the Canada Games Council under Andre Gallant, where he was a pretty average player in the noon hour Naismith Drive softball league. Years later, it was Gallant volunteering to help Desjardins with the 2002 Grey Cup in Montreal.
“I was a big Als fan, and one night over dinner with Marcel, I wrote down on napkins all the plays I wanted the Als to run and told him to give the notes to the coach,” said Gallant, now in the Maritimes. “The next week, after the Als won, Marcel sent me a letter on Alouettes letterhead saying, ‘Thanks, we couldn’t have done it without you,’ and sent a Grey Cup toque with it. I still wear the toque.”
Desjardins also spent several years in the Canadian Football League office in the 1990s, where one of his duties became a daily ordeal of phone calls to a struggling Ottawa Renegades franchise, trying to help management keep the team afloat.
It wasn’t what he envisioned growing up a fan of the Rough Riders, with memories of Tony Gabriel’s catch in the 1976 Grey Cup and a game-winning catch by Patty Stoqua in the 1981 Eastern Final in Hamilton.
Now, he has a chance to build his own version of success.