A board of directors has been overseeing the football club we know as the Blue Bombers since the Winnipeg Football Club was formed in 1930. Since I began reporting on the Bombers back in the early 80's I haven't always agreed with some of the moves they've made or how they have conducted the business of the Blue Bombers.
But I also can't agree that the current organizational structure is behind the times as suggested in an article in last Friday's edition of the Winnipeg Free Press. Gary Lawless wrote that the Bombers should adopt the Roughriders model which has Jim Hopson as CEO and which has proven to be highly successful. Hopson was hired by the Riders board to run the show back in 2005 and has done so brilliantly with three Grey Cup appearances in the last four years. The best move Hopson made was in hiring the right General Manager in 2007 to replace Roy Shivers and that was Eric Tillman. He then hired the right head coach in Kent Austin to replace Danny Barrett.
That model is what the Blue Bombers were using when Lyle Bauer took the reins of power as President back in 2000 and were using up until his resignation following the 2009 season. The only difference is that Bauer kept hiring the wrong people for the football side of the organization. It was Bauer who fired Dave Ritchie as Head Coach back in 2005 and then hired Jim Daley. That decision proved to be so bad that he let General Manager Brendan Taman find the next Bomber head coach and Taman chose Doug Berry. Despite rewarding Berry with a contract extension following the 2007 Grey Cup appearance – Bauer lost faith in Berry and against the advice of Taman chose to fire Berry after the '08 season. Once again Bauer conducted the search for a new head coach – but it was obvious on the day that he fire Berry that he had already chosen Mike Kelly to be the Bombers new head coach. Do I need to remind anyone how that worked out. But Bauer did say a couple of weeks ago that if he could do all over again he would still hire Mike Kelly so he would have repeated his own folly.
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So the point here is – the Bombers, like the Riders, did operate with a CEO and President calling the shots and what did it get them? In Bauer's defense he did turn the Bombers around financially putting them in a healthy position in the black. But that was in large part due to the Province and City of Winnipeg forgiving 5 million dollars in loans ($2.5 million each) when the club hit certain targets.
On the day Bauer resigned the board also decided to let Mike kelly go and so began the search for replacements. But there was a slight problem as the Board had entered into a deal with David Asper and Creswin Properties that would see Asper take over as the football team's private owner if he could complete a deal for a new stadium. At that time the feeling was anybody hired to be CEO would only have the job for a year before Asper would start exercising his ownership control – once the stadium was under construction. Second the Lyle Bauer experience was still fresh in their minds. So hire two people independent of one another who would run the business and report to the Board. Jim Bell was hired as President and Joe Mack as VP and General Manager of Football Operations.
This spilt model works for other teams in the CFL like the BC Lions who have Dennis Skulsky and Wally Buono, the Alouettes with Larry Smith and Jim Popp (Smith is stepping down) and in Calgary where the Stampeders have Head Coach and GM John Hufnagel run football operations and where Lyle Bauer only handles business affairs and has no say is what Hufnagel is doing.
Is the current Bomber Board operating as an "old boys network" – If they were Trevor Kennerd would not be on it as he was not a favourite of board back during his playing days. But Kennerd or Bob Cameron (another member of the current board) were not on the board when Joe Mack was hired and that decision does smack of an old boys network move. Former board member Paul Robson was a part of that hiring committee and he brought Mack name forward even though Mack was over 20 years removed from the CFL. Mack was hired over Jim Barker who landed on his feet in Toronto and did a great job with the Argos.
But the current Bomber Board has not interfered in any of Mack's football decisions and his hiring of head coach Paul LaPolice. Same for Jim Bell. The board does not from my understanding interfere with the way he's running the business side of the football team. Both Mack and Bell report to the board but thats the same for Hopson in Regina who said that the Riders board holds him accountable. As I said earlier the Riders were fortunate in hiring the right man – lets hope the Bomber board did the same.
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