Hall Delivers On Promise, Hires Former Teammate
10/06/2009 06:19
New defensive backs coach Hairston brings CFL, NFL playing experience to table
There will be a new look to the Edmonton Eskimos secondary in 2009 but, in a certain way, it will be comfortably deja vu for the club's new defensive backs coach, Stacey Hairston.
That's mainly because the 41-year-old Hairston played alongside Eskimos rookie head coach Richie Hall for three years in Saskatchewan in the early 1990s.
If you're going to install a new defensive system, it surely makes sense to have like-minded people doing the hands-on coaching. For Hall, that means having former Saskatchewan and Winnipeg head coach Jim Daley as defensive co-ordinator and Hairston supervising the secondary.
"Me and Richie held down the left side there in 1990-91," Hairston said, chatting amiably after practice on a wet, raw Monday.
"At that time, Richie was a seasoned veteran, I was a rookie coming into the league, so he was the one who kind of took me under his wing and was teaching me and helping me out as far as technique and stuff like that." Hairston played corner for two years and defensive halfback for a third year in Regina, before playing two seasons with the NFL's Cleveland Browns.
Obviously, the money and the challenge of the NFL were important to Hairston, but for sheer enjoyment, the CFL was a fine, if nerve-racking place to be a defensive back.
The CFL was loaded at quarterback in the '90s, with Doug Flutie, Tracy Ham, Kent Austin, Matt Dunigan, Damon Allen and Danny Barrett filling the skies with footballs aimed at athletes like Raghib (Rocket) Ismail, Stephen Jones, Darren Flutie, Don Narcisse, David Williams, Earl Winfield and Allen Pitts.
"It was a shootout every week," Hairston recalled. "It was never a dull moment playing corner in the CFL in those days." On first reference, what has changed in how defensive backs cover their men in the CFL in '09? "You probably see a little bit more creativity on offence as far as bunches and clusters (formations) and motion," Hairston said. "Of course, there has always been motion, especially back in the day with Toronto, with Ismail and Clemons." The current landscape is not unlike the '90s, with QBs like Anthony Calvillo, Kerry Joseph, Ricky Ray, Buck Pierce and Henry Burris on the boil, throwing to Ben Cahoon, Jamal Richardson, Geroy Simon, Ken-Yon Rambo, Fred Stamps, Kamau Peterson, Jeremaine Copeland and Weston Dressler.
Hairston has more than a, beg pardon, passing acquaintance with the current situation. An assistant for the past 12 years at his alma mater, Ohio Northern University, Hairston has kept in regular touch with Hall.
In 2008, Hairston was a guest coach with the Roughriders in Saskatchewan, and the one-time backfield partners have had a tacit understanding through the years that if either one got a head coaching job, there would be an opening for the other on his staff.
More from the Edmonton Journal.
SWIVEL HIPS SAYS:
Can the Eskimos’ defensive secondary really be any worse than it’s been the last couple of years with Rick Campbell in charge? I think not. Maybe Hairston will actually make some improvements.