VANCOUVER (CFL.ca wire) -- The B.C. Lions announced on Tuesday that veteran CFL scout and executive Craig Smith has been added to the club’s staff as its eastern regional scout.
[url=http://www.cfl.ca/index.php?module=newser&func=display&nid=23440]http://www.cfl.ca/index.php?module=news ... &nid=23440[/url]Nice to See Craig Land on his Feet.
Good, B.C. can hear about his travels and long days, hot weather, his wife coming along on his trips, concerts.....and no player signings
Last year, with Dan Rambo, Mike Mc Carthy and Marcel D
all throwing names in a hat, for some reason I get feeling that
Craig's and Mike's recommendations had little significance
when Marcel was recommending players to Charlie Taaffe.
Craig didn't have the authority to sign players, blackngold.
He didn't even have authority to get players a try out.
He evaluated players and kept in contact with them.
Believe me, he had more than his fair share of the frustration
watching young players not playing well or even progressing
when Greg Marshall kept sticking with what he had.
He had players he regarded highly waiting by the phone.
I'm sure it was equally frustrating this past season
seeing players dismissed before they even got acclimatized.
P.S.
I like Obie's K.I.S.S principle,
in terms of the personnel staff.
Just him and Dan Rambo.
Just ran into Craig and his wife at Future Shop on Upper James and he is very excited to be with the Lions........
I will admit that I have been confused as to what he and Mike did in the last couple of years. Definetly under-utilized. I have the utmost respect for Mike McCarthy and his football knowledge. I do not have enough of a book on Craig to even know if he is a good judge of talent and a recruiter.
I could not tell you a single player that he was responsible adding to the roster or neg list. I would be very interested being able to keep up with some pipeline information.
Casey Printers was one when he was in BC.
Casey Printers was one when he was in BC.That very well could have been Obie's pick.
In my presence at practice one day a fan who believed that
Craig Smith was responsible for Nick Setta becoming a Ticat
asked him whether that was true or not.
All he would say was, we personnel
people work as a team around here.
That's what he said whenever
he was questioned about players.
When I ran into him outside of the Roger's Centre
after the Argos had blown out the Ticats.
he apologized for the pathetic performance
that we had travelled down the QEW to see.
A truly classy guy!
I am glad he has found work in the CFL
in a place he likes and is familiar with.
That doesn't take away from the fact
that Craig was the kind of guy
who would never blow his own horn
when asked if he brought
certain players in, Tipper.
Ron..if it were an example of someone he did bring in and he said that, I'd be more inclined to accept your thought process. However, him saying that about someone he didnt bring in, COULD be taken as 'I didnt do anything so we are team'.
I dont know him though, and cannot say one way or the other.
Let's just say if a certain interim general manager, was never the interim general manager, the roster would have included some real stars of this League (who were not stars at the time).
Craig brought forward some great people that a certain interim general manager would not extend contract offers to. I trust those days are now far behind us.
What “stars?” Be specific.