O’ Leary: Fiery Maas sets Esks tone and ‘you either like it or you don’t’
It was just around the time that Mike Reilly mentioned Odell Willis that his teammate appeared, wearing nothing but a gold-coloured towel.
“Odell’s loud, boisterous and likes to have a good time,” Reilly says. On cue, Willis walks by.
“There he is right there, going to his media wrapped in a towel.”
A layer of terrycloth is all that’s between him and a room full of reporters. Willis barely glances away as he hears his name and enters the room.
“If he wasn’t doing that, if Odell wasn’t doing what we just saw, I’d think there was something wrong,” Reilly says.
The way Reilly explains it, there’s very much a come-as-you-are feel to this Esks team.
“To me, there are many different types of leaders,” the MOP candidate says on Wednesday afternoon, after a relatively quick but cold practice at Commonwealth Stadium.
“I coach the game with emotion. I played the game with emotion and you either like it or you don’t.”
– Edmonton Eskimos head coach Jason Maas
The saying that pundits love to slap on a team with an interesting coach is that it takes on his personality. If it’s suggested here that this team has taken on Jason Maas’ personality, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Is it the anger that you’ve seen on the sidelines from week to week the last two seasons? Is it a verbal wrath that seemingly no one is safe from? Is it a headset meeting its untimely demise on a challenge lost?
“I coach the game with emotion. I played the game with emotion and you either like it or you don’t,” Maas says when he’s asked about the perception of him that might be out there.
He’s seen himself at times this season on TSN when he’s watching games, CFL and otherwise. He catches idle chatter here and there. He knows his sideline presence has been a recurring topic.
“Everyone’s entitled to their opinion about me. I’m in the public eye,” he says. “I chose a profession that people get to criticize you for everything you do. Good and bad. It doesn’t bother me. If it did, I wouldn’t do this. I’m going to always do this how I feel it needs to be done.”
It’s fascinating to stand in this narrow hallway at the stadium with Maas and listen to him. He can’t explain his coaching philosophy because he doesn’t specifically have one.
“I didn’t read a book on how to coach. I basically coach the way I feel it’s meant to be done,” he half-explains. “I’m not one of those guys that has a library of how-to. I just do it.”
He stands there unflinching, completely comfortable in his skin. The more he talks, the more it dawns on you that this is a man that, as a football coach, is completely honest and true to himself. When you realize that, it’s hard not to be jealous of him. Can you imagine how freeing that is? How much simple, unnecessary day-to-day stress would leave our lives if we could all live like this at least some of the time? There are movies made about people that get opportunities like that.
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“I know what type of person, football player that Jason Maas was and I know what type of coach that he is,” Reilly says. “I know the passion that he has for the game and I know if he were to handle himself any differently on the sidelines that would throw us off our game. We’d wonder what was up, we’d know it was not genuine, we’d know it’s not real.”
Two seasons together now, a combined 22-14 and at the helm of an offensive machine, Reilly and Maas are entering into their second of what they hope is another deep playoff run. They seem like the perfect QB-as-extension-of-the-coach that you hope for. More than anything, both men appreciate people being who they are, saying what they need to say and doing what needs to be done to win. They spoke separately on Wednesday, but said the word “fake” with the same intonations and same disdain. They need honesty if their pairing is going to work. The team needs it if it’s going to be successful.
“I don’t want anybody to be in charge of my team that’s fake,” Reilly says. “I think that everybody knows what it’s like to be around someone that’s fake. When they’re trying to be a rah-rah guy and they’re not. Or they’re trying to sit there and have a conversation with you about something that they don’t really care about and they’re just saying things that you want to hear. That’s not what you want to hear. That’s not somebody that people are going to follow.”
Reilly learned first-hand what Maas was about in early 2016, shortly after he was hired as coach. Maas took whoever was on the roster and in town out for a night of bowling.
“There were probably 30 or 40 of us and I could just see it. He didn’t want to lose, bowling,” Reilly says.
“We’re all just together having a good time and he was super focused and intense bowling. I was like, ’I like that. He wants to win at everything he does.’ I know he cares about being competitive and being successful and I’m drawn to that type of stuff. It’s not for everybody and that’s fine, that’s OK, it’s not a problem. But it’s not an act. it’s just how he is in every day life.”
Maas knows there are limits in the Esks organization. He saw his GM, Ed Hervey, relieved of his duties late in the off-season this year. He knows that if you push in the wrong way, for the wrong things, there can be push back. He hasn’t gotten that.
“Trust me. If I was not of,” the hint of a smile starts to emerge here, “of sound mind — maybe it appears that I’m not at times — but if I wasn’t I’d be told to be different and that’s not what my employer wants. I don’t get that from my employer.”
He’s gotten one phone call this season. He said commissioner Randy Ambrosie was in touch with him over throwing his headset on the field.
“I’ve seen headsets thrown. I’ve seen a lot of other things thrown on the sideline, but not on the field, I get that. I understand that part,” he says.
“But when I’m sitting there and I’m yelling at an official or yelling at a player or yelling at a coach, to me that’s part of football, it’s what football is. It’s a game of emotions and high pressure situations. Not everyone’s going to be even keel. Do people take it over the line at times? Yeah, it happens.
“I coach a certain way, I am a certain way and all of it’s real. There’s nothing fake about that,” he says, sounding so much like Reilly. “I enjoy and love my job and I love the CFL and am very thankful and grateful for it.”
