All 6 of the BCFC head coaches face pressures in this 2017 season. The BCFC may be all about building character in its players, but like any junior sport the Al Davis mantra still rings true underneath. “Just win baby”.
In three of the markets, however, there are new men in charge, making the situations different still. And all three face very unique situations from the other.
It’s hard to argue that Charly Cardillichia doesn’t have the most pressure on him to be successful, not only this season but the next 2-3 as well. When the Westshore Rebels captured just its second ever BCFC title and the Langford faithful was treated to an exciting Canadian Bowl (albeit a loss) to the Saskatoon Hilltops this past November, a new era seemed upon junior football on the island.
Then the surprising departure of head coach JC Boice in January was followed up less than two weeks later by the even more surprising announcement that offensive coordinator Charly Chardillichia was the new head coach. To outsiders it seemed likely that defensive coordinator Shane Beatty or Charly’s father John, who previously had success as Rebels head coach would get the job.
Charly understands people outside the inner circle may be shaking their heads but says they don’t know the growth he has experienced in coaching minor football in the Victoria area and the success he has achieved at all levels. He has deep roots with the Rebels since he played with the club in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. No one cares more about the club than him, including his dad.
Still, as far as BCFC success is concerned, there is no-where to go but down for him. An unenviable situation to be sure, but one that he seems unfazed by. One can only admire his confidence and see a similarity between him and his dad in how he approaches junior football and the passion he has for it.
“I understand it (the pressure), but I’m excited by it. I’m excited to take on the task, I know that some people might think I’m underqualified, but come November everybody will know damn straight why I got this job. I need to keep building something where we are not just a good team, but a good program for years. We have to compete with the Okanagan Sun every year, it’s starting with a great boardroom we have now, it’s going to continue in our coaches and trickle down to our players.”
Charly isn’t just filling the shoes of the 2016 CJFL coach of the year in JC Boice, but also John Cardillichia who turned the Rebels from doormats to contenders in the 1990’s. He says he has advantages his dad didn’t have when he was in charge, crediting Rebels President Doug Kobayashi and GM Jonathan Poppitt among others.
“Doug Kobayashi is a great man. He and his board have worked so hard to eliminate the debt the club had in previous years, so we have more to work with. Jonathan Poppitt is a great football guy. He understands what it takes to win and has a great group of people around me to help support me. It’s a place we have never been before and we are poised to make a really good run the next 5-10 years.”
As far as having his dad work under him on the staff (John is the special teams coordinator and also served as a sounding board for Boice last year), he is excited. But how does a dad react when being told what to do by his kid?
“I’ve been teling him what to do since I was a kid, He didn’t like it probably (laughs). If you watched our sideline when I was paying for the Rebels I was in his ear telling him when to kick a field goal or take a time out. Seriously, we work really well together. My dad is probably my best friend. Next year my son will probably be on the team, it will be the 20th anniversary of the Rebels and we will have 3 generations of Cardillichia’s on the team so that will be pretty cool.”
Still, if being the head coach with his dad, who didn’t even apply for the head job, as an assistant is a nice story…what about the man who did apply for the job? That being defensive coordinator Shane Beatty who had success as head coach of the Okanagan Sun? It’s no secret that Beatty wasn’t happy about not being named head coach as he took some time before deciding to stay on staff.
Chardillichia acknowledges there were challenges during the hiring process.
“This is an awkward situation, it’s a double edge sword. When I applied, I sat down with him and I told him that if I got the job I wanted him to work for me. He asked if I got the job if I would work for him and I said I would. But he kind of replied slowly to me on that questions and said he didn’t think he could work for a coach much younger than him at this point in his life.
“But we talked more and got to know each other better and I told him I wouldn’t want him involved if he was going to be any kind of cancer anyway. It was going to hurt me to lose him because the team had rallied behind him last year but it was going to hurt me more if he was on staff and undermined me.
“My strength as a leader is second to none, when we left that table I think we had a lot. of mutual respect. I’m really happy to have him on board.”
In Chilliwack, the environment Bob Reist inherits is polar-opposite from the one with the Rebels. In the case of the Huskers wins have been more of a bonus than expected the past number of years…case in point 0-20 the last two seasons.
Reist comes to the program with knowledge of the BCFC as a player with the Abbotsford Airforce from 1999 through 2002 where he achieved status as a CJFL All-Canadian. And his resume is an impressive one and seems tailor made for junior football success. Since 2011 he has been an assistant coach with the University of Manitoba Bisons, additionally, since 2010 he has operated a program called “Recruit Ready” in Winnipeg to help prepare high school players for the next level of football.
If the Huskers have seemed ill-prepared for the rigors of the BCFC the past couple seasons, their new coach is not.
Reist may have no- where to go but up with his club, but the hole that has been dug in the ‘wack is pretty deep. We asked him point blank, why would any coach take on this project?
“It’s an opportunity. I know the history of the program quite well. They came into the league when I was in Abbotsford and I followed the BCFC in Winnipeg of course because we recruit for the Bisons there. It’s a challenge for sure, an absolute challenge, but it’s an opportunity to expand my coaching profile. We will take the underdog role and embrace it…and there will be fight in our dog this year, I promise you that.
“I don’t expect things to be easy. We aren’t going to flip the switch overnight but we will get this thing turned around.”
In 2016, a BCFC pre-season story picked the Huskers to finish in last place. This elicited a call from then head coach Jason Quinter as he felt the story was undermining his efforts as he had told his players he expected them to make the play-offs. There isn’t an observer of the BCFC who would expect the Huskers to be in the play-offs in 2017, how does Reist react to that observation and what does he plan to lay out as expectations in that area for his new team?
“We have expectations of being a very competitive football team. I’m very realistic with our players coming in and our returning players. We are trying to build a winning culture. Winning doesn’t just happen. You don’t go from 0-10 to 10-0 and winning the Cullen Cup in year one. Our plan is realistic. We are here to compete and that’s what we are going to do. It starts at camp.
“I’m not going to sit here and give numbers, I’m not going to say we are going to go 1-9, 5-5 or 10-0. I don’t believe in that, anything can happen in a football game, whether you are the best team or the one expected to lose. Are we going to be champions overnight? Of course not, I’d look pretty foolish to say I thought that and I’d be lying to my players.
“Our goal is to win football games and turn our culture around. That’s a very attainable goal and something we will do. Hopefully in the short term but definitely in the long term. Is this the team you want to play for if your only goal is to win a championship this year? Probably not, but if you want good coaching to help you grow…if you want to be part of a good group of young men in a great community and be part of turning what has been a negative thing into something really good, then this is where you want to be.”
If Reist is going to be successful in his quest to create a winning football team he will need to do well recruiting on the prairies where high school football teams are more plentiful than in BC. With strong roots in Winnipeg where he has resided since 2003 that is an area that should be a strength for him.
Reist says this is an area he expects to capitalize on.
“Absolutely, I know these guys (Winnipeg coaches). I have been around them a long time and I think they know I have a good track record and what I’m capable of in terms of getting the most out of my players and helping them grow as players.
“The guys we are getting are very talented players. That’s the thing, for some of these high school players moving out here to play for the more successful teams like the Okanagan and the Raiders…it’s not always possible to get on the field with playing time because there are older players ahead of you. Here the opportunity is better to get that time in sooner and when we are in the play-offs that player is better for it.”
In Nanaimo it would have been a major surprise if anyone other than Doug Hocking was named head coach after Jerome Erdman stepped down for a university gig with Bishops. If someone else had been named the 4th head coach in Raiders history he would have been the second choice after Hocking turned the job down. With Hocking’s past history and success as an assistant he would likely be the first choice of any BCFC club looking for a head coach.
His history both as a player and coach in the conference runs deep. He was a Surrey Ram for 3 years (88-90) before making the jump straight to the CFL with the BC Lions from 91-94 then the Winnipeg Blue Bombers (1995-2002)
A career assistant as a defensive coordinator, Hocking says he was ready to take the reigns as bench boss and couldn’t have seen himself as an assistant under a new head coach after Erdman’s resignation. He said while Erdman’s resignation might have seemed out of left field it wasn’t so much.
“Jerome is a great coach, a quality guy and a quality coach. From the time I was first around him when we were at UBC together I knew he was a really good career coach. So, when we were in junior together I always had a feeling he would be moving on.”
Hocking knows full well the vast difference between life as a coordinator and a head coach in the BCFC where administration of the staff and recruiting often seems like a 24 hour a day job. With a young family, he and his wife Kristin have an 8 year old son Connor and 6 year old daughter Mackinley, he knows there will be challenges but he is confident he will be able to juggle schedules with a capable staff of assistants in place.
“I talked to my wife and explained to my kids this is going to be a busy time but they are all in and that makes it the right decision for me. We joke we are cab drivers because Connor is so busy with his hockey and lacrosse and Mackinley with dance. We are always driving them somewhere. But football has always been part of their lives and they enjoy it. This is something I’ve always wanted to do, I always wanted to run my own program. The opportunity came along, they asked if I wanted the job and I just had to check with my family…and here we are.”
Hocking was Matt “Snoop” Blokker’s right hand man when the Raiders were dominating the BCFC and winning 3 national championships. While the Raiders are still in the mix to capture a provincial title most years and gave the eventual champion Westshore Rebels a major scare in a semi-final last season, they are not the Raiders of old. As someone who knows first- hand the differences between the Raiders then and today, what does Hocking see as the keys to getting to and staying on top of the conference again?
“Back then we had that mix of rookies and veteran 21-22 year old kids who weren’t interested in playing their last years at CIS, they wanted to play junior football. So we had a real good mix of young talent and veteran leadership. Right now, we are a really young football team, I think last year we were the youngest team in the country. But we were making strides last year. We were this close to knocking off the Rebels (his club lost a 34-29 semi-final) and I really believe had we won that game we would have gone into Kelowna and beaten the Sun in the Cullen Cup.
“This year we have to bring in not only the rookies out of high school but we need to bring in the older guys with CIS experience or who have played junior somewhere else and are looking for a change. That’s the mix you want to be successful and that’s what will be the makeup of our team.
“Off the field, we were a one man show. We didn’t really have a board of directors, we had one guy calling the shots at that level and writing cheques (former President Hadi Abassi). And recruiting wise Snoop ran the show and was very good at it. I didn’t really recruit, I made one recruiting trip and that was it.
“Now we have a board of directors and we have to go out and raise money. It’s different now, that’s part of my mandate of being a head coach. I need to sell this board that we don’t need to go to Duncan and have training camp anymore. We are based in Nanaimo, we need to sell our program to the businesses here and get their sponsorships back. We didn’t need that before, but now we need that corporate support to stay alive and be successful. This is a good football city, they will support us and help us stay viable in the BCFC. Once we get that back on track we will be back to where we should be and have to be.
Home fans of all 3 new head coaches will have to wait past the opening weekend of the 2017 BCFC season as each club is on the road July 29. The Raiders visit the Langley Rams while the Huskers will be in Kamloops taking on the last club they beat 3 years ago when they tackle the Broncos. For the Rebels, it will be a rematch of the 2016 Cullen Cup when they head to the Apple Bowl in Kelowna to take on the Okanagan Sun.
