An enigma named Don

Stephen Brunt has a first rate look at the career of Don Matthews, most recently of the Montreal Alouettes. Brunt traces the career of the CFL legend and sure fire Hall of Fame member to be, including a pretty impressive recap of The Don's record of achievement.

From his nine Grey Cup appearances, five of which he won and regular appearance in post season play, it goes without saying that he was one of the dominant coaches in the legions of those that have stood on a CFL sideline.

From the media feuds, to his many stops along the CFL highway, Brunt gives the man his due, even if the man himself probably might have a problem with one or two thoughts along the way eh!

Brunt: The Don won't easily fade away

STEPHEN BRUNT
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
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The circumstances surely weren't to his liking, but somewhere, Don Matthews must be enjoying the style of his departure from the Canadian Football League.

In a puff of smoke, he always said. One day he'd just be gone.
And now, he is.

You can never say never in his case, even when you're talking about a 67-year-old with "non life-threatening" health problems, given the bum's rush by the Montreal Alouettes on the heels of a win, with the team in first place and still very much in the hunt for the Grey Cup. There's that looming coaching vacancy in Hamilton, for instance, one of the few CFL cities where Matthews hasn't yet hung his hat.

In 2000, when the Eskimos gave him his walking papers for startlingly similar and similarly vague health reasons, the coach with the most wins in league history was supposed to be just as done as he is now. Instead, he moved east and appeared in three championship games in four years, winning one of them.

So there remains the slight possibility that it's not over yet.

But since there wasn't going to be a farewell tour or a goodbye news conference in any case, let's call this the (conditional) end of the line, and consider one of the more intriguing figures in the long history of a league chock full of them.

Though many thousands of words have been written about him over the years, Matthews doesn't tend to inspire the long view, never mind sentimental send-offs. That's mostly because the reporters in any town he left — and there were plenty of opportunities — were inclined to dance on his grave the minute he was gone.

That Matthews is a great coach is self-evident. It's not worth debating a record that stretches back to the Edmonton Eskimos dynasty, includes the CFL's foray into the United States and the best team in league history, the 1995 Baltimore Stallions, encompasses two of the greatest seasons of the league's greatest player, Doug Flutie, and culminated with a final stint in Montreal marred only by its unhappy conclusion. Nine Grey Cups, five wins, one season out of the playoffs. Add it up.

With a bit of luck, and perhaps a better knack for the sport's politics, Matthews might have been a great National Football League coach as well, or at least might have had a shot at proving himself in that arena. Certainly, he had more than a touch of the demagoguery that seems to go naturally with the NFL gig, a trait that in the more modest Canadian context played as simple arrogance. (When was the last time anyone fretted about whether Bill Parcells or one of his ilk was a nice guy?)

Matthews's relationship with the press, though you wouldn't know it right now, hasn't been quite so hate/hate as it has sometimes appeared. He knew how the game outside the game worked, and had moments when he played along, but also liked to toy with the boys and girls on the beat, to demonstrate that he was smarter than the average bear.

What emerged through those jousting matches was a character from fiction, The Don, who one might argue was rivalled only by Flutie and Michael (Pinball) Clemons, in terms of crossover recognition and the CFL.

What was lost in the process was the chance really to understand how his head worked, or to know the man behind the façade.

In a very rare revealing conversation years ago, Matthews talked about the price he paid, about what he'd left behind in all of those coaching stops, about how it had made him less of a husband and less of a father than he ought to have been. Afterward, he was careful not to let his guard slip again, not to answer anything that he considered a "personal" question, not to open the door to anything that might have made him seem more human.

Easier to play The Don, to inspire fierce loyalty among those who played for him, to leave the public-relations exercises to other folks — such as Alouettes president Larry Smith, who this week sounded less empathetic than you might have expected from someone saying goodbye to a "sick" colleague.

As a result, we knew him but we hardly knew him, and that was fine with him. There will be a place in the Hall of Fame waiting when he's been gone long enough. Maybe by then, with a bit of time passed, it will be easier to give Matthews his due, and maybe by then he'll be more willing to accept it.