Tom's a coaching natural

Tom Higgins Sr., who coached 47 years of high school football, was quietly celebrating his 73rd birthday the day his son called.

"That was a hell of a birthday present," said the old coach of his son calling to tell him he'd just been named Coach of the Year in the Canadian Football League.

"I was just happy he was back in coaching. His four sisters and his brother are all coaching, you know. They're at the high school level.

"My other son Dan, who is a police officer, took over my team (Skyway High School in Piscataway, N.J.) when I retired.

Barbara Ann coaches field hockey and cross country, Colleen coaches swimming and diving, Susan coaches track and Dawn was coaching gymnastics until she found out she was pregnant with twins.

"It's been quite the ride for Tom and the whole family has rode with him," said his dad.

"When he went up to Canada to play, we all asked 'What are you going up there for, to a foreign country? But we went up to watch him play and I have to admit Canadian football is a lot more fun to watch.

"When he went to Edmonton as general manager under Hugh Campbell I thought, well OK, as long as he's still in sports ... but then they made him head coach and we were all pretty happy about that. We were all thinking, well now things are back to normal. This is a coaching family. Everybody is coaching again."

The old coach is old style. Young Tom couldn't be less like his dad in terms of style and personality.

"Nah, my personality is a hell of a lot better than his," laughs the old coach.

"I was a much more verbal, aggressive coach. I was on the players' backs all the time. Tom is laid back.

"They all took after me in coaching but they all took their mother's personality.

"His brother and his four sisters are all a carbon copy not of me but of him. Maybe they all revolted against me.

"I know Tom has adopted the style that suits his personality best. I know he's a good coach. I know he puts in the time.

"We went up for the Grey Cup last year and to watch Edmonton win that game was so exciting. And to get that phone call from Tom on my birthday telling me he'd just been presented with the Coach of the Year trophy ... well, that was a wonderful phone call to get."

Tom Higgins didn't think it would mean that much to him to win the Annis Stukus Trophy. Until he won it.

"I always had a dream and a vision of becoming a head coach," Higgins began after his standing ovation at the Mayfield.

"My dream and my vision had my family all there, smiles all around, balloons "I never dreamed the way it was three years ago. I never dreamed it would be a nightmare. Instead, I'm sitting beside Hugh Campbell and there are no smiles. Players on the team in tears, many of them losing a coach they loved to play for and it was not the vision I'd imagined so many years ago," he said of the day the Eskimos fired Don Matthews during training camp.

Matthews, who won the award in 2002 as head coach of the Grey Cup champion Montreal Alouettes, was noticeable by his absence.

The thing Higgins didn't expect, after having taken the Eskimos to three consecutive first-place finishes, was he'd have the day he'd dreamed of and envisioned. It wasn't the day he got the job. It was the day of confirmation for doing the job.

His wife was there but not his three children.

Nor was his dad, the former NFL player from the '50s.

"Had I known it would be like this, I'd have had my kids play hooky," Higgins told the crowd that winter day. "I didn't think it would be a touching, emotional moment."

When Higgins was named head coach of the Eskimos, he didn't have the highest profile in the history of football.

At that moment, what impression did most Eskimo fans have about him?

They knew, probably, that he was a former player and assistant coach of the Calgary Stampeders. They knew he'd been Hugh Campbell's right-hand man for seven seasons. Some knew he was coaching bantam football in St. Albert in his spare time. But that was about it.

It's been a slow getting-to-know-you with the soft-spoken coach.

Born in Colonia, N.J., about 15 minutes from the place now known as the Meadowlands, Higgins was born into football.

"My father was a pro in the National Football League with the Philadelphia Eagles and the Chicago Cardinals," he says.

Chicago Cardinals, huh? Back in the days of leather helmets, huh?

Dad's definitely old-time football.

"When your dad played in the NFL and coached high school football for over 40 years, football is your game from birth," says Tom.

"I knew from ninth grade that I wanted to be a pro football player. I was only 120 pounds. But my dad was a big man. I figured 'I gotta grow'. I got up to 235 pounds in the NFL. I'm about 195 now."

As a kid in Pop Warner football, Tom Higgins's team went to the pro football equivalent of the Little League World Series in Sarasota, Fla.

Coming out of high school, Higgins was offered scholarships at several high schools. He chose North Carolina State.

"I was real lucky. The year I went there was Lou Holtz's first year. He coached there four years and I played there all four years. In those four years we went to four bowl games - two Peach Bowls, the Liberty Bowl and the Blue Bonnet Bowl."

Higgins did OK as a wrestler, too.

"At the end of my first season, the wrestling coach came to me and asked me if I'd ever wrestled. I said 'Yes.'

He walked away and came back a little later and asked 'Any good?' I said 'Yes.'

He walked away again and came back a little later and asked 'What was your record?' I told him 33-1."

Higgins ended up spending four years on the wrestling team, too and ended up being named a two-sport All American.

"David Thompson won it the year before. It was quite an honour. I found out years later that I was the only two-sport All American in the history of North Carolina State.

Higgins didn't get drafted. He came to the Canadian Football League.

It was 1977, Jack Gotta's first year as coach of the Stampeders.

"I signed a two-year contract - $24,000 the first year and $26,000 the second year. And they gave me a $2,000 signing bonus. I always remember that was the last time the Canadian dollar was worth more than the U.S. dollar. I got an extra nickel for every dollar. I thought that was a pretty good deal."

Higgins had 11 unassisted tackles in his first game.

"That had nothing to do with me," he says. "It was because of John Helton. I thought 'I can play behind this guy forever.' "

Didn't work that way. Gotta cut him the next year.

"I found out a year later the guy he decided to keep rather than me, Ollie Bakken, was making $16,000.

Higgins ended up with the New York Giants in the NFL but suffered a hip-pointer in the third pre-season game.

"I got paid for the whole year - $35,000."

The following year he ended up with the Cleveland Browns in training camp, then was traded to the Buffalo Bills - where he played the entire season.

Married in the off-season to Sharon, a Calgary school teacher, he headed back to Canada in short order, his NFL career over.

"In 1980, we packed the car and moved to Regina, Saskatchewan. I played the last eight games in the second season Ron Lancaster was head coach there.

"The next year they hired Joe Faragalli as coach and I got cut again. I got cut six times in my pro football career. It gave me a real understanding about what it feels like to be cut. I was cut every way you can get cut, including having my stuff packed in a bag. That's just cruel. I swore if I ever ended up in a position where I had to make cuts as a coach that the one thing I'd make sure to do was be fair and honest with the player."

Ending up back in Calgary teaching school, Higgins joined Peter Connellan's U of Calgary Dinosaurs football program as an assistant coach where they won two Canada West titles and a Vanier Cup.

In 1984 Steve Buratto was hired as Stampeders head coach and gave Higgins an assistant coaching job.

"In nine years as a Stampeders assistant, I worked with five different head coaches," said Higgins.

Higgins came close to getting the Stampeders head coaching job.

"It came down to myself or Wally Buono and Normie Kwong, who was running the club then, selected Wally."

Hugh Campbell called from Edmonton and talked to him about the Eskimos head coaching job, which ended up going to Ron Lancaster.

When Campbell called back and offered him the assistant general manager's job, he gave up the idea of ever being a head coach.

And then it happened. But no balloons.

And for a while there ...

Two years ago, after the Eskimos lost the Western Final in his first season taking over the team, it was generally agreed Higgins would have to win the Western Final to keep his job.

Last year, after having made a controversial call in losing the Grey Cup game the year before, it was generally agreed he'd pretty much have to win the Grey Cup to keep his job.

When he started the season 3-3, open line shows were littered with fans calling for him to be fired. And they were back on the phones when he lost the Labour Day Classic in Calgary.

Higgins said it wasn't difficult for him to handle all that because he grew up in a football family.

"You don't get in this profession if you're thin-skinned," he said. "One day you can be drinking the wine, the next day you can be picking the grapes."

He brought that expression out again when the Eskimos started the season at 0-3.

Interestingly, his dad was up visiting at the time.

"We were up there for 10 days until we ran out of money," said Tom Sr. of starting the season hangin' around his son and his Grey Cup champion team.

"It was tough watching them start the season at 0-3. I started the season 0-4 about four times, so I know how he felt. He has a pretty experienced team and I think he did a pretty good job of not letting them get on each other.

"But we'll be going up to the game in Toronto, just to check out and make sure he's got them going good again."

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