Welcome to the first Monday Morning Sentimonies of 2011. As you can see, my resolution this year clearly was not to be more punctual in my Monday morning posts. That said I am doing well so far in my resolution to limit the amount of racial slurs in this blog.
As we begin the new year, the top story is of course the new coach of the Riders. At some point this week we will officially name Greg Marshall as head coach. Over the holidays people were constantly asking me what I thought about Greg Marshall. Before Christmas I posted some brief (and less than flattering) comments about Marshall as a candidate, but now that its official, allow me to expand on my thoughts surrounding our new coach.
I'm so so on this hire. While he definitely wasn't my first choice or second, he isn't the worst person we could have hired... that honour would have gone to Richie Hall (or Jim Daley). Like most new coaching hires, Marshall comes in with a great deal of unknown about his abilities. the same unknown that Miller, and Austin had before him.
To be fair to Marshall, he is well respected across the league by players and coaches alike; he has been responsible for some great defensive units over the years; and he has a sweet dago moustache... oops well there goes that resolution.
The thing gives me a great deal and worry around Marshall is the number of times he has been rejected for similar positions elsewhere. Everyone seems to speak highly of the guy but virtually every team has interviewed him and proceeded to pass on him. And given that awesome guys like Mike Kelly and Bart Andrus ended up getting hired instead of him has got to give you cause for concern. Its like a really hot chick that all your friends rave about but nobody has or wants to sleep with her. That just doesn't make sense unless she has STDs or a tendency for stabbing people or something serious like that that you don't know about.
Though I'm leery about the hiring of Marshall, like all Rider coaches I will give him a chance to prove himself in the upcoming season. Let's not forget that prior to becoming beloved/iconic coaches: Kent Austin was a recently fired, snap case and Ken Miller was some old dude nobody really knew existed and possibly assumed to be dead (ala Weekend at Bernie's).
So welcome to the Riders Greg Marshall. May you prove all my worries wrong and continue the prosperous times in Riderville. Hell, if he wants to immediately get a tonne of support from fans (myself included) all he has to do is announce the firing of Jim Daley and there will be much rejoicing. Though if Marshall chooses to retain him, I don't think he'll make his first training camp.
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