Richie Hall should know this because he was part of it.
He was there when the Saskatchewan Roughriders became a team.
Not back in 1910.
In 2007.
“Kent Austin created the culture,” said 16-year veteran Gene Makowsky of the year that what has stayed together first came together.
“Off the field, Jim Hopson started it down that path as CEO a little bit before that,” said the offensive lineman.
“It was Kent with Richie and I,” said current Roughriders head coach Ken Miller of the head coach, defensive co-ordinator and offensive co-ordinator.
“Kent took over as head coach and came in and the first priority with him was that we be really cohesive as a coaching staff. His philosophy was that it’s tough to have the players be cohesive if the coaching staff isn’t cohesive.
“He worked hard from the beginning to create that cohesive coaching staff. And we’ve had that model to work with,” said the coach of the 5-2 team, which will take on Hall’s 1-6 Eskimos before the largest crowd of the CFL season in the 5 p.m. game at Commonwealth Stadium.
One team being a team, and the other being a bunch of players wearing the same uniforms, was the difference in the Roughriders’ win in Week 3 in Saskatchewan. And it’s been the difference ever since.
The Roughriders are a team and the Edmonton Eskimos are still trying to become one. Maybe you need to beat one to become one, I don’t know. But there’s been a real contrast there to this point of the season, in which these two teams play each other four times.
“The talent over the league is pretty even,” said Miller.
“It makes a big difference to have the character and leadership and guys who play with a real maturity.
“Not just chronological maturity,” he said of age and experience in the league. “But emotional maturity.”
The Roughriders on paper didn’t appear to have the kind of talent to have been that 13th-man penalty from winning the Grey Cup last year. And with the loss of John Chick and Stevie Baggs to the NFL, didn’t look to have the lineup to be 5-2 to start this season, either.
“The total ends up to be more than the sum of the parts,” said Miller.
The best example of that is the sack stats.
Last year, Baggs and Chick led the league with 23 sacks between them. Nobody on Saskatchewan has more than three this year. But Saskatchewan has remained at the top of the league in sack stats.
It’s like one of those three-sack guys told the Regina Leader Post during the bye week.
“I know there were a lot of questions out there but defensive co-ordinator Gary Etcheverry has done a great job scheming for success,” said Luc Mullinder.
“It’s a team game. When we get to Week 20, when we get to this Grey Cup that we want to get to, it’s going to be a team that wins it.”
It’s like first-year Rider and CFL veteran linebacker Barrin Simpson marvelled in a TV clip earlier this week.
“We grind, we work hard and we play for 60 minutes,” Simpson said. “We have a family concept. We stay focused and make sure we’re doing the best we can do on the practice field, too.”
The head coach agrees.
“They do a great job of preparation and working with each other in getting themselves to play well,” he said.
But there may be more involved.
The Roughriders likely lead the league with players who live year round in the city where they play.
There’s almost two dozen of them.
“When I started there were only the Saskatchewan guys,” said Makowsky, a Saskatoon native. “Jim Hopson really endorsed that and cultivated that.”
“Our players are just so active in the community. It’s an important aspect of who we are,” said Miller.
“The community is very open, warm and accepting. When players become a part of the community, I think that strengthens the bond with the people they’re playing for and with each other.”
Look back at the great Edmonton teams and the number of players from those teams who have spent the rest of their lives here. There might be more players from both the ’54-55-56 and ’78-79-80-81-82 teams still living here than there are on the 2010 team.
terry.jones@sunmedia.ca
