The Long Read: New roles, same old battles for Steinauer, Dickenson

For many coaches, this is the fun part.

On a late Tuesday morning on an off-day in Week 10, Chuck Winters works somewhere within the confines of the Ticats’ new digs on a plan to defeat the Calgary Stampeders.

Or, more specifically, how to stop Dave Dickenson’s offence.

Winters, about to coach just his ninth career CFL game, is new to the pro coaching ranks but not to dreaming up ways of shutting down the current Stampeders bench boss.

“It’s funny to see how things just kind of evolve or how time passes,” Winters thought out loud. “When you’re playing, you never look and pinpoint and say ‘in the future you’ll be coaching’.”

The Detroit native is now the Ticats’ special teams and defensive assistant under Defensive Coordinator Orlondo Steinauer, but it wasn’t long ago the two were devising a plan to stop Dickenson in the 2004 Grey Cup Championship.

Winters was the Argos’ starting halfback and Steinauer was at safety back then as the two broke down film with Rich Stubler while wondering who would play at quarterback for the Lions – the previously-injured Dickenson or the mobile and Most Outstanding Player Casey Printers.

“That was the whole big thing,” recalled Winters. “It was kind of, for us, the threat of Casey Printers running – we’d rather have Dave throwing than Casey running.”

Dickenson got the nod. The Argos won 27-19.

Argos players celebrate after winning the Grey Cup in 2004 (The Canadian Press)

“We found out two days before the game,” said Winters of who was starting. “For us it was kind of a sigh of relief.

“We knew we could get Dave in the pocket and he was going to be a pocket passer.”

On Sunday, Steinauer and Winters’ defence will once again try to stop Dickenson’s offence when the first-place Calgary Stampeders take on the surging Hamilton Tiger-Cats. And while the players will be different – Bo Levi Mitchell, not Dickenson, will be throwing the ball for Calgary – some of it might seem oddly familiar.

For Winters and Steinauer and Dickenson and many other coaches, this, after all, is the fun of it all. Me vs. you – even if it is with a headset instead of a helmet.

“That’s the intriguing part,” said Winters. “That’s the fun part of football – trying to figure it out. It kind of brings me back to when we played them in our playing days.

“It seems like there are some similarities to the offence and the schemes and the philosophies and that whole process.”

Unlike in ’04, Dickenson will try to come out on the winning end this time. In the bigger picture, though, the coaching trio, separated by just one year in age – Dickenson and Steinauer are 43 while Winters is 42 – is only a small part of an impressive wave of 40-something-year-olds making the transition from Canadian Football League player to coach.

While Winters just became an assistant seven years after retiring and working outside of football in corrections, Dickenson has worked his way up from running backs coach to offensive coordinator to head coach.

Widely considered the top coaching prospect in the game, Steinauer may only be steps behind.

For ‘Coach O’, it’s only a matter of time . . .

I asked Orlondo Steinauer what it’s like to see Dave Dickenson, Mike O’Shea and Jason Maas in charge of teams around the league as head coaches.

A Seattle native, Steinauer has competed against Dickenson as a player and a coach ever since his career started back in 2001. He was teammates with O’Shea with the Argos for eight years. He competed against Maas as a player then won a Grey Cup with him as a coach in 2012.

Leaning back in the players’ lounge somewhere under the west grandstand on a late summer day at Tim Hortons Field, on a break from watching film and planning for Calgary, Steinauer’s smile lit up the room.

“It’s almost indescribable,” he responded to the question at hand. “To go to war alongside Mike O’Shea all those years personally . . . when you see Jason’s competitiveness.

“You felt that around Jason – he played the game as quarterback like very few; he’s tough and gritty and wanted to win.”

Dickenson, Steinauer added, played the same way.

“You just know about the 77 per cent completion percentage, but sometimes you forget about the fire – the success he had at Montana and how he’s the man and how he played through concussions and took big hits and shoulder injuries.

“To see those guys do well, I’m just so happy for them. Competing against them, I’ve been doing that for 15-plus years and they’re in this position because they’re authentic. They’re easy leaders to follow.”

Ask Steinauer straight up about what’s next and his answer will be ‘a win this weekend’. Coaches tend to have one thing in mind and that’s whatever opponent happens to be next on the schedule.

Sure, a win this weekend is priority number one. Dig a little, though, and there’s no hiding his desire to one day be a head coach just like Dickenson and the others.

After a 13-year playing career spent between Ottawa, Hamilton and Toronto, Steinauer’s post-football career started in broadcasting shortly after he retired in 2008. Producers and media members had always told Steinauer throughout his playing career that he’d make a great broadcaster, and only two days after doing a pilot for Sportsnet he was in the studio and on the air.

It was only after covering one Grey Cup that then-Argos head coach and general manager Jim Barker approached Steinauer in the off-season about coaching.

“He called and said ‘are you interested in coaching? Heard a lot about you and I’d like to interview you’, and he offered me a job across the desk.”

If he weren’t a coach, Steinauer might have worked in sales or teaching or motivational speaking. He just as well could have stayed in broadcasting. The skills required in all of those things are what make Steinauer such an effective coach. They require one skill more than any other: the ability to inspire. To be a people person.

If you were to break it all down, coaches in the CFL spend an hour and a half, maybe two hours on the field a day. The other time is spent mentoring someone who’s having a bad day, or teaching someone the X’s and O’s, or motivating that backup linebacker – the one who was a star in college and is now being asked to be just another piece.

“It’s not for everybody,” Steinauer said. “You’ve got to be able to teach . . . you’ve got to be able to motivate those guys sometimes, and it’s got to come from within.

“That’s why I coach.”

Steinauer was 37 when Barker first hired him in 2010 to coach the Argos’ defensive backs. After a 9-9 finish, then-defensive coordinator Chip Garber was dismissed the following August through only six games.

All of a sudden, Steinauer, ready or not, was a defensive coordinator at age 38, after only a year and six weeks of coaching experience.

“I was thrust into a role that quite frankly I probably wasn’t ready for,” Steinauer recalled. “But I had done enough the year before and the first six games that I was afforded that opportunity.

“So I just took the approach as I did as a player – if I worked hard, I prepared, I was just me, the rest would take care of itself.”

The Argos finished 6-12 that year and restructured their coaching staff, moving Barker to a GM-only role and hiring Scott Milanovich as the head coach before the start of the 2012 season. Joining Milanovich was one of the league’s top defensive masterminds in Chris Jones. Steinauer was offered his old position back.

 

Photos: Orlondo Steinauer through the years

He accepted, paying close watch to Milanovich and Jones and earning his first Grey Cup as a coach when the Argos captured their historic 100th Grey Cup Championship win.

Everything really was taking care of itself, and not long later Steinauer found himself interviewing on two different occasions for the same position – with two separate head coaches.

First it was with George Cortez, who was granted permission to talk to Steinauer by the Argos just a few days before he was fired. Steinauer thought he was going back to Toronto – done deal – before the newly-hired Kent Austin reached out to the Argos about their defensive backs coach.

As a player, Steinauer spent six years under the coaching tutelage of Rich Stubler, one of the true mad scientists when it comes to defence on this side of the border. Jones, now the head coach and general manager of the Riders, is another one.

Steinauer took what he learned as a player and a coach from them and the likes of Gary Etcheverry, his first mentor Joe Moss, and, the one who first taught him to think like an offence, Don Sutherland, and emerged as a can’t-miss coaching prospect.

Hired by Austin to become the Ticats’ defensive coordinator, Steinauer headed for his second coaching job with his own identity – one that’s unique and less traditional, kind of like the minds of his mentors.

Chuck Winters describes Steinauer as having a PhD in defence. That may be so, but a lot of what the Ticats do is quite simple.

“We barely have a playbook – it’s about seven pages,” said Steinauer. “Stubler may be the only guy in the league that has me beat; I’m hearing he has none right now. Chris Jones’ was pretty thin.

“I’m very simplistic in a lot of ways but we’re definitely multiple and we’re definitely conceptual. We’re going to teach concepts and at times some memorization but not a whole bunch.”

“You’ve got to be able to teach . . . you’ve got to be able to motivate those guys sometimes, and it’s got to come from within.”

Orlondo Steinauer

Ticats defensive coordinator Orlondo Steinauer on the sideline during a game (Ticats.ca)

Known mostly for wearing the Double Blue as a player, it’s easy to forget that Steinauer spent four seasons with the Ticats first. He was hated in the Hammer as an Argo, but when he came back as a coach, the Ticats fans, they forgave pretty quickly.

His three daughters, not so much.

“I had Glad bags full – big lawn leaf bags full of double blue,” said Steinauer. “And I remember it was December 23 and I basically told Kent and the organization that I was going to come aboard after they had offered me the job.

“Tears,” he continued. “Tears from the young ones.

“They said they’re staying in Toronto. I said ‘it’ll be alright, Christmas is a couple of days away, it’ll be OK’.

“They weren’t hearing it though.”

You don’t know if you’re ever ready, Steinauer remembers thinking going into his second stint as a defensive coordinator. As it turns out, he was.

The Ticats’ defence ranked fifth in the league in 2013 and has only gotten better since then, finishing second in 2014, fourth in 2015 and currently ranking first in the CFL heading into Week 10 in 2016.

More than anything, Steinauer’s defences have a penchant for making big plays – kind of like those of Jones and Stubler’s. Last season the Ticats led the league in interceptions and points off turnovers while doubling the next closest team with eight touchdowns.

The family’s gotten over Steinauer leaving Toronto; his daughters have traded all of their double blue for black and gold. “Now it’s all good in the Hammer right here,” Steinauer adds.

But maybe they shouldn’t get too comfortable.

The details aren’t all clear — and most of them Steinauer would prefer to keep private – but last off-season he was viewed as one of the top two candidates to land the head coaching job in Edmonton left vacant by Jones. It ended up going to Jason Maas.

“Jason’s a great friend of mine; he’s deserving of that job and I’m happy for him,” said Steinauer. “That’s really what I have to say about the Edmonton job. There are other details that don’t need to be discussed, but they got the best guy for the job. I’m happy for Jason and I’m happy to be here.”

There will surely be more opportunities for Steinauer down the road. For now, though, everything he could possibly want is in Hamilton.

Passionate fans. Full stands. State of the art facilities. The best possible support staff, from Austin and Eric Tillman to the video coordinator Matt Allemang.

“How do you coach without video?” Steinauer asked. “Then you go to Drew Strohschein in equipment and he’s built the same way. He’s meticulous. He’s doing everything for the players the same way Bob Young and Scott Mitchell are doing.

“Bob Young and Scott Mitchell’s commitment to this organization – obviously you can see what they’ve done,” he continued.

“From them to the people that you never see, it is that – it’s family. It’s great to be a part of it.”

The hardest part of the job . . .

Orlondo Steinauer is a family man in more ways than one, and so is Dave Dickenson along with many coaches across the CFL.

Of course, there’s the football family, like the one Steinauer alluded to, then there’s the one at home. Striking a balance between the two can be complicated for any coach, let alone one first making the transition from playing to coaching.

Dickenson, a quarterback in the CFL for 11 years, says one of the reasons he enjoyed the league so much as a player was the schedule – one that, devoid of the 12-hour days worked by those south of the border, allowed him to have a life off the field.

He’s had eight years to get used to it, but life as a coach is a lot different.

Dickenson’s prolific Hall of Fame career finished in Calgary, where he won a Grey Cup as a backup quarterback in 2008 in his final season in the league. While he had long known he wanted to coach in some capacity, he wasn’t sure if it would ever be in the pro ranks.

“When I did retire I was a little bit lost,” recalled Dickenson. “I didn’t have a plan to jump into anything right away.

“I knew I would coach at some point but it could have been volunteer, it could have been high school – it really didn’t have to be anything more than that.”

John Hufnagel, arguably the most successful coach in the modern era and also the Stampeders’ general manager, reached out to Dickenson about the prospects of coaching. The Great Falls, Mont. native was hired on as the running backs coach the next season.

“It wasn’t the smoothest transition, but I got in as a running backs coach and learned some things at a position that I didn’t feel 100 per cent comfortable coaching,” he said.

Dickenson admittedly didn’t know a lot about running backs, but grew immensely as coach over the next year and a half. He got to hold his own meetings and do some actual game-planning and, by 2010, took over play-calling duties.

“I didn’t officially have the offensive coordinator title but essentially I was doing the work,” said Dickenson. “That to me was when the love came out because you can see what you’re doing and you can see it getting executed on the field and having success.

“That’s when the real fun comes in.”

Even if it wasn’t always telegraphed, Dickenson’s rise among the coaching ranks was very much linear. He became the team’s running backs coach in 2009, the quarterbacks coach in 2010, the offensive coordinator in 2011 and, 89 wins later, the head coach in 2016.

In his seven years as an assistant, Dickenson worked with an established star pivot in Henry Burris and helped develop two more in Drew Tate and Bo Levi Mitchell. Over that timeframe the Stampeders had gone 89-36-1.

Although it wasn’t announced until after Calgary’s win over Hamilton in the 102nd Grey Cup Championship, it was some time earlier during that same 2014 season that Dickenson and Hufnagel agreed that a promotion would arrive in 2016.

“Huff and I made an agreement,” recalled Dickenson. “He asked me if I was planning on going; I said I really don’t want to. He said he had a plan to go another year and a half and then I would take over and he would move to GM.”

It was a handshake deal.

“Obviously things can change, but I was confident in our organization that when you agree upon something you agree upon it, and I felt like I had also shown a lot of loyalty to the club by not looking elsewhere and there were a lot of head coaching jobs available that year.”

Photos: Coach Dickenson through the years

The Stamps went 14-4 and finished second in the West in 2015 before bowing out to the Eskimos in the Western Final. The transition to Hufnagel in the front office and Dickenson on the sideline has been smoother than many could have envisioned, as the team has also overcome the departure of Defensive Coordinator Rich Stubler along with a number of key pieces on the field.

The hardest part, if anything, Dickenson says, has been getting used to the commitment off the field.

The Stampeders’ head coach wakes up most days at 5:30 in the morning and eats and showers at the facilities before starting work at 6:30. Work days often go past the dinner hour and sometimes as late as 9 or 10 p.m.

“I do miss my family, I love my kids and wife,” said Dickenson. “I get to spend some time with them but it’s a grind.”

It’s better than punching clocks, he adds, like in the 9-to-5 world, but the grind lasts all week and all season. Days off are few and far between, and with a Week 4 bye week this season the coaching staff won’t get time off again until the end of the year.

It’s a side of coaching many players don’t see when they retire and aspire to become coaches.

“They always say when you go into coaching it takes a lot of time,” said Steinauer, “but I don’t really think it’s emphasized enough. I think that’s the biggest transition.”

As a player, Steinauer added, whether it’s practice, a meeting or the game, the biggest thing is showing up.

“As the coach, you do all that, plus you prepare and you run it. It’s draining, mentally and physically.”

And it’s certainly not for everyone.

“Just like in any job you just have to go for it and see where it leads,” said Steinauer. “If it’s something you enjoy doing, unless you go through it, you’ll never be able to check it off to know if it’s for you or not.”

A new coaching tree begins . . .

In a recent film session at a Stamps’ defensive meeting, Defensive Coordinator DeVone Claybrooks turned the room over to linebacker Deron Mayo and safety Josh Bell.

The coaches sat back in silence while the two players critiqued certain plays of everyone in the room, including themselves.

“How many defensive coordinators will just turn the mic over to the players and just say ‘hey, critique yourself’? defensive end Charleston Hughes wondered out loud.

There was another instance, he recalled, and if he could remember correctly it was then-defensive coordinator Rich Stubler who turned the room over to then-linebacker Juwan Simpson.

“He turned the mic over to Simpson and said ‘critique yourself, grade yourself on your effort and on your assignment, alignment – that whole deal.”

Mastering a concept is not just learning it but being able to teach it. Going from player to coach can be a daunting task, but no team has had more success with players making the jump than the Calgary Stampeders.

Perhaps Hughes’ story shines some light on why that is.

Dave Dickenson wasn’t the only Stampeder that parlayed a playing career into one coaching.

Corey Mace earned his first coaching gig in 2016 after six years of playing for the Stampeders.

Juwan Simpson was released this past off-season but appeared as a guest coach in training camp. He’s currently coaching his old high school team back in Decatur, Ala. and, by all accounts, has a bright future as a CFL coach.

Even Hughes, who’s still playing and ranks second in the league with seven sacks this season, was offered a college coaching job mere minutes after an April Fool’s joke that he was retiring had gone viral in 2015.

That’s how well-oiled the Stampeder machine is: When Stubler left the team suddenly and unexpectedly back in December, there was no panic – it was next man up, which in this case happened to be Claybrooks.

“Being surrounded by great people with Huff and Dave, they set you up and they let you go through your growing pains,” said Claybrooks. “They really aren’t micro-managers – they’re trial and error. You couldn’t ask for a better situation as a first-year coordinator to fall under the wings of those two guys that have won a lot of football games and been very successful.

“They laid a good foundation for us.”

On the other hand, Dickenson now identifies and targets potential future coaches the same way Hufnagel once brought him aside and asked him about his future back in 2008 – the same way Mace has taken the step up from defensive lineman to defensive line coach this season.

“He’s becoming an excellent coach and has, to me, a great rapport with his players so I think he’s really fitting in with our staff,” Dickenson said of Mace.

“But you kind of target these guys,” he added. “I talked with him last year when he was still hurting; I said ‘I’m not sure you know what you’re gonna do next year, but I’d love to talk to you about potentially keeping you on’.”

It starts with the desire to continue what the body no longer allows – a sustained long-term career in football – but can’t happen without getting lucky, either. A break is what Simpson hasn’t been able to catch just yet. Some never end up catching one at all.

“You’ve got to get a break,” the first-year head coach reiterated. “You’ve got to get your foot in the door and you’ve got to get in.

“We’re solid staff right now; I don’t see a lot of turnover. I think Juwan just needs a chance; if he gets a chance he’ll do a good job.”

The path least traveled . . .

When it comes to players making the jump, Chuck Winters’ path to becoming a coach is the one least traveled.

Winters ended his six-year CFL career in 2008 with the Argos but didn’t become a defensive and special teams assistant with the Ticats until 2016. Those six years in between were spent helping kids working in corrections at the Roy McMurtry Youth Centre in Brampton, Ont.

Orlondo Steinauer cautioned that some players don’t fully know what they’re getting into when they pursue coaching opportunities following their careers. Winters knew all too well, deciding that he wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment.

“After I retired, my initial thing was just stability,” said Winters, whose family had just moved to Canada around 2005. “Just getting my wife and kids established; that was more important to me at the time.”

As an Argo, Winters had worked with Steinauer and other Argos defensive stars Jonathan Brown, Jordan Younger and Clifford Ivory, among others, on the ‘Huddle Up against Bullying’ and ‘Stop the Violence’ campaigns aimed toward at-risk youth.

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That was what kick-started his life after football working as a recreation officer.

“That was something that I knew provided stability, and when the opportunity came, I knew it was something that allowed me to stay connected to the community, stay active and also help the community out as well.”

Winter’s path to being a coach was anything but typical, but, like most coaches, it wasn’t without also being in the right place at the right time.

After seven years in corrections, Winters and Steinauer crossed paths as their daughters played basketball. The former Argos defensive back had coached kids before, but the thought of coaching at the professional level had never seriously crossed his mind.

“I saw Stein and he goes ‘hey man, why don’t you become coach’,” recalled Winters. “I’m like, ‘I am a coach – I’m coaching my kids’ and he said ‘I want you to come coach with us’.”

“I’m like ‘really, OK’. I’m at the time at the juncture in my life – my mindset is different – I would love to take on that opportunity.”

Winters was also offered a chance to coach with the Argos from Rich Stubler, but opted to go with the young and energetic Steinauer on an upstart Ticats team looking to get over the hump and win a Grey Cup.

A decade and a half spent playing pro football and working in corrections has laid the foundation for exactly the kind of coach Winters is. The 42-year-old has only been on the job seven months but one memory he’ll never forget is the note he received from a player shortly after being released.

“He wrote ‘the pinnacle of what a player’s coach is’,” said Winters. “It meant a lot, especially with my first year and trying to find my way and figure out where I fit in and my role.

“When that text came through, I looked at it and I was in my room, I had practice the next day and I go ‘wow, maybe that’s my role, maybe that’s what I am to these guys’.”

Winters, Dickenson, Steinauer, Claybrooks – all of the coaches mentioned in this story – they pride themselves on being player’s coaches. They’ve done it before.

Claybrooks, for example, says he can tell a guy ‘look, I know what your body feels like right now so I can understand that’.

They also try and motivate in ways other than screaming a player’s ear off.

“You’ve never really seen [Rich Stubler] yell and [Rick Campbell] never really yelled at all,” said Claybrooks. “Seeing those type of guys that have that calming demeanor and influence in your life can tell you there’s a professional way to go about things to getting that message across without being a tyrant.”

“When that text came through . . . I had practice the next day and I go ‘wow, maybe that’s my role, maybe that’s what I am to these guys’.”

Chuck Winters

Ticats’ first-year coach Chuck Winters looks on during a game (Ticats.ca)

For Winters it goes back to what he learned in corrections – that cracking the whip isn’t necessarily an effective way of getting the job done.

“I’m not cracking any whip,” he said. “That’s not my job. That’s not my approach. I don’t even do that to my own kids. I come at you in a respectful way.

“It’s my tone and how I’m saying it to you – mutual respect that you can understand and say ‘he meant that from the heart; he’s not trying to pick on me or come down on me in a negative way.”

If coaching is about selling something and motivating people and building and maintaining relationships, and all of those things Coach ‘O’ mentioned before, Winters has the looks of a future head coach.

There’s no easy answer . . .

While Chuck Winters says he one day hopes to be a head coach, the first realistic step towards that might happen if Orlondo Steinauer gets a head coaching job. Winters could get a crack at the vacant defensive coordinator position in Hamilton, or on Steinauer’s staff wherever he ends up.

For now, Winters will presumably be patient and continue to hone his craft under one of the best defensive coaches in the CFL – ‘patient’ being the operative word.

After all, the first opportunity isn’t necessarily the best opportunity.

That’s just good life advice and it certainly also applies to football, where sometimes an opportunity is so hard to come by that it’s hard not to jump on the first one that comes up.

For Orlondo Steinauer, there’s no way to know for sure when an opportunity is the right one.

“I think there is something to be said for that,” said Steinauer. “With that being said, there are 41 opportunities in North America to coach pro football – it’s tough to turn down opportunity.”

Sometimes, though, it’s for the best.

Mike Benevides was one of the top up-and-coming coaching prospects in 2009 when he interviewed to be the Toronto Argonauts’ head coach. A Toronto native who grew up an Argos fan and had family still living in the area, it seemed like the perfect fit.

In the end, though, Benevides reportedly removed himself from consideration, stating that the timing wasn’t right.

While Benevides turned down the Argos and bought himself more time to learn under now the all-time winningest head coach in Wally Buono, Scott Milanovich turned down the Argos that same year to remain the offensive coordinator under Marc Trestman. It wasn’t until three years later that Milanovich joined the Argos.

“They had people ahead of them – mentors,” said Steinauer. “Wally at the time he was there . . . Scott was around Marc Trestman and had a chance to learn a lot.

“I think when you have mentors like that you’re more apt to be patient and wait for the right opportunity.”

Steinauer has Kent Austin now, while the same was true for Dickenson in Calgary, who tested the waters but ultimately decided to stay put and continue learning under John Hufnagel. His Stampeders are 6-1-1 and leading the CFL so far in 2016 while his transition has looked easy.

John Hufnagel and Dave Dickenson during a game in 2015 (The Canadian Press)

The current Stamps head coach remembers approaching head coaching interviews with Hamilton, Edmonton and Saskatchewan with caution.

“I went on some interviews, but even then when I went on the interviews Huff said ‘be careful because you never know what they’re going to throw at you’,” said Dickenson.

He was never offered a job, which in the end, he said, was for the best.

“I was pretty honest with them,” Dickenson said. “I told them they’d have to knock me out basically – ‘If you want me you’re gonna have to be great’.

“I thought it was important though, just to see what that was all about and I felt comfortable that I didn’t need the job if something came at me.”

The right situation for Dickenson would have been one where he could assemble his own staff; one that would enable him to be successful. In Calgary, for instance, he’s been able to promote Claybrooks to defensive coordinator, hire Corey Mace and keep special teams coordinator Mark Kilam on the staff.

That’s something Steinauer will take into account as well. Whatever happened in Edmonton, part of the consideration for Steinauer had he gotten that far would have been who could accompany him.

“Part of it for me, if that opportunity ever presents itself, is who can I bring with me?” said Steinauer. “Where is the organization going, what are they committed to? And they need to know about me and what I’m committed to.

“It’s more than just patience. It’s a little bit about timing.”

Timing, a word every coach seems to bring up.

“Are you able to surround yourself? Ultimately, anybody getting a head coaching job by themselves doesn’t do anything. You’ve got to have the right people.”

A competitive avenue . . .

What’s obvious is that coaching isn’t for everyone.

Most coaches are former players, but most players don’t become coaches. And for every player that does make the move from player to coach, there are many more that try but fail, at least in the professional ranks.

Why is coaching a popular avenue for players following their career? What I’ve learned in all this is that coaching isn’t just ‘something to do’ to continue making money after retirement. There’s no way it’s merely just another job.

Players that go into coaching have a passion for the game that few others possess. It’s not just liking football or knowing a lot about it; it’s living and breathing it. It’s why you’ll never know a coach that isn’t described as ‘competitive’.

Things get heated when Jason Maas and Mike Reilly play darts every time they scheme for opponents.

Dave Dickenson might seem like a calm, laid back subdued guy, but he’s got that other side too.

“As soon as you start talking about football he turns as red as an apple and he’s ready to do something crazy to win a game,” said DeVone Claybrooks. “He’s really a true Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

There have been stories about Dickenson playing pickup hockey with the coaches, but the best is when he was on the beach as the coaches were in Florida to hold free agent camps.

“It was pickup beach volleyball with a few pops around and that type of thing,” said Claybrooks, “and I think somebody hit it into the net and he turns around and gives him a look and points at him with two fingers like ‘match point, lock in’.

“And that just goes to show the competitive nature of Dave and how he strives for it. He puts in the time.”

And in the end, that’s exactly the competitive avenue coaching provides. While Dickenson, Steinauer and Claybrooks have only just launched their coaching careers, they’ve been at it almost as long as they played.

Playing careers are short but coaching can last a lifetime.

“As a player you like the locker room atmosphere, you like the team environment,” said Dickenson. “Although we put in a lot of time and I feel we work really hard, I think it’s a fun job and I think most of us would all say it’s just an extension of playing.”

An extension of playing, just like how Dickenson can hope to best Winters and Steinauer in a rematch of 2004.

“Not that I can short-sell their athletic skill, but I felt like both were smart players and had success because they were paying attention to film and schemes and game plans,” said Dickenson. “And that’s what I felt for myself.

“I’m glad everything’s kind of working out. Most of us that are in football want to stay in the game in some way and when the body gives out on you, you go into coaching.”

And there’s always that competitive side. After talking about his season so far, his leap into coaching, his career ambitions and Sunday’s game, I asked Dickenson if there was anything else.

“Not unless you can tell me what Steinauer’s gonna run against me,” he answered.

If I told him, he probably wouldn’t believe me.