I went to my first Calgary Stampeders game at the age of 12. Our family had moved to Calgary from Ottawa, where CFL games were held in a gloomy pillbox known as Lansdowne Park. Fans there were treated to the tragically inept Ottawa Rough Riders and a noodle-armed quarterback who chucked flutterball passes that were dropped by a crew of butterfingered wide receivers. So, we never bothered going to a game.
In Calgary, however, I encountered a different football universe. My father and I rode a packed C-Train to McMahon Stadium where red-jerseyed Stamps fans were jam-packed to the rafters. Raucous cheers followed every positive play. Failed possessions often resulted in aspersions cast upon the referee’s capacities.
“Hey, ref,” one guy yelled after one such dubious call, “if you had one more eye, you’d be a cyclops!”
A man in the next row cheered for those other Roughriders, the ones from Saskatchewan. He was portly, visibly intoxicated and bore the green-painted face of a bewildered commando. “Let’s go Rough-riders!” he bellowed with the wounded belligerence of a wooly mammoth sinking into a tar pit.
“Sit down!” my father shouted.
“You sit down!”
“I am sitting!”
“Yeah? Well ... let’s go Rough-ri-ders!”
Beach balls were batted round the stands.
A young hottie rose up, snatched one of the balls, lofted it above her head and spiked it like a volleyball. It struck the noisy Roughrider fan on the back of his skull, eliciting the loudest cheer of the day.
Meanwhile, the Stamps won. And a new fan had been born.
The Stampeders prospered throughout the 1990s, winning the Grey Cup in 1992, 1998 and 2001. They did so using a formula rooted in good management, which is often the determining factor in the success of a team.
A team may get the top pick in a draft headlined by a can’t-miss blue-chip player who tears both ACLs in a waterskiing mishap the day after they draft him. But if the team has competent ownership, general managers, scouts and coaches, it can still prosper despite such unwelcome twists of fate.
By the same token, reckless management can sink a team and quash its morale just as easily as a prima donna player or clubhouse scandal. Professional sports history is littered with such corrosive owners.
According to Calgary Sun sportswriter Ian Busby, you can add Michael Feterik, owner of the Stamps between 2001 and 2005, to that list. “After the Stampeder’s 2001 Grey Cup victory, things went to hell in a handbasket,” says Busby, referring to the transfer of Stamps ownership from local restaurateur Sig Gutsche to Feterik, a successful Los Angeles-based businessman who founded Orange County Container Group, a packaging company with plants in California and Mexico.
Feterik’s son, Kevin, happened to be third on the Stamps’ quarterback starting list, but with his old man now installed in the owner’s box, Kevin was in prime position to move up the ladder.
Never mind this kid had the arm strength of a colobus monkey and showed a disturbing tendency to get concussed by little more than the stiff springtime breezes that gust round McMahon Stadium.
“It gets worse,” Busby continues. Coach Wally Buono, one of the architects of the Stamps’ success in the 1990s, resigned in early 2003. Media scuttlebutt said he was axed due to his reluctance to install Feterik’s son as the Stamps’ starting quarterback.
But Feterik’s wildest managerial haymaker was still to come. He imported from California a shadowy envoy named Fred Fateri and appointed him as the team’s chief operating officer, even though he lacked any semblance of relevant work experience.
Fateri exists now in Calgary’s collective memory largely as a symbol of cataclysmic failure. Little is known as to where he came from or what he did before he arrived. Was he an oil sheik’s son, an investment banker or a gallivanting playboy shipwrecked in the Wild Rose province? No one knows. Fateri, for his part, made only vague reference to his past, claiming to have been kicked out of boarding schools in London and Switzerland.
Superstitious Stamps fans may believe Fateri was an inhuman entity kindled out of molten brimstone and Satan’s toenail clippings; a strange, evil thing that drifted into town on an odious wind.
Apparently, Fateri bonded with Feterik while the two watched his son toss around the pigskin. Perhaps Feterik was so dazzled by Fateri’s sartorial flair and slick patter that he somehow overlooked the fact Fateri was roughly as qualified to run a football team as he was to herd Lapland reindeer or perform open-heart surgery.
This much appears certain about Fateri’s history: it includes little football experience. Yet, this failed to dissuade Feterik from handing Fateri the reins to his CFL club.
Fateri quickly proved himself out of his element. One boneheaded effort followed another. For example, shortly after Buono was sacked, former Stamps quarterback Dave Dickenson expressed a desire to again play for Calgary. Dickenson had been elemental in the team’s
1998 Grey Cup win, and was later awarded the CFL’s Most Outstanding Player Award in 2000. Yet, Fateri hemmed and hawed about Dickenson’s “unreasonable” demands, though his
asking price was relatively modest.
“It’s obvious why they didn’t sign Dickenson,” Busby says. “When your owner’s kid plays the same position, you’re not bringing in someone to bump him down.”
Dickenson forgot about Calgary and signed with the BC Lions instead, where Buono had set up shop; together they spearheaded a
resurgence, reaching the Grey Cup finals in 2004 before winning in 2006.
Meanwhile, Feterik and Fateri turned the Stampeders into the league’s white elephant. Media scrutiny intensified and Feterik eventually turfed Fateri in 2003. He hired Mark McLoughlin — the Stamps’ field goal-kicker — as president. The experiment lasted 56 days, at which point a mystified McLoughlin returned to booting extra points.
The owner’s son, Kevin Feterik, was starting quarterback by this time; he spent games tossing up unanswered prayers and being pancaked by opposing linebackers. Following a dismal 2003 campaign that saw the Stamps finish dead last in the West Division, Feterik axed the Stamps’ coach and hired Matt Dunigan as the new coach and general manager.
Even though Dunigan had a storied career as a quarterback, winning two Grey Cups with the Edmonton Eskimos and Toronto Argonauts, he had zero experience in either role he was hired for by Feterik, making him the ideal fit for an organization in shambles.
So, what is the sympathetic conclusion to this tragic story?
Consider it a case of filial love gone wrong. You can fault the Feterik family, sure, but when it comes to fathers and sons, it can be tough to see straight. It’s doubtful the Feteriks set out to bankrupt the Stampeders’ fortunes, or run the team into the ground. In all likelihood, the elder Feterik only wanted his son to catch a break.
In early 2005, Feterik sold the team and his son finished his career with the Bergamo Lions of the Euro Football League, where, according to his father, he threw 420 passes without an interception. Rather impressive, until you realize hardly anyone plays football in Italy, so this feat is similar to scoring 50 goals in the Senegalese Hockey League.
And what of the entity known as Fred Fateri?
“I don’t know,” says Busby. “He sort of ... went away.”
Fateri did materialize in court to launch a wrongful dismal lawsuit in January 2004. And later he appeared on local sports radio station, Fan 960 to denounce Feterik. Then he drifted into the hinterlands.
Perhaps he will emerge someday to plague another professional sports franchise. In fact, he may already be a private consultant for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, a claim I base solely on the team’s recent record.
Maybe the oddest aspect of the Feterik reign is that he managed to sell the franchise for a profit. He bought it for $5.1 million and sold it for more than $6 million. Which is as absurd as purchasing a birthday cake, stepping on it and then somehow selling it for more than the initial investment. Begging the question: which brave souls bought this particular stepped-on birthday cake?
“A little sparse up here, isn’t it?” says Scott Ackles, current president of the Calgary Stampeders.
I’m sitting in a meeting room at the Grey Cup Festival Office in Bow Valley Square. To say it’s “sparse” is an understatement. A few desks, chairs and phones are all that can be seen in this otherwise-empty room.
Ackles is well dressed, alert and comes from a hardcore football family. He was raised by one of Canada’s pre-eminent football men.
His father, Bob, started off as a water boy for the BC Lions and worked his way up to hold positions as its general manager, and eventually president and CEO. As a kid, Scott used to help his father paint helmets on the concourse at BC’s Empire Stadium. Throughout his father’s illustrious career, he also saw what worked and what didn’t, and he brought this knowledge to his position as Stamps president when he was brought on board in 2007.
One thing Ackles has learned: don’t bad-mouth the old brass. “If it’s all the same to you, I won’t speak to matters of previous management,” he says.
This caginess is emblematic of a new organizational ethos. Local businessmen Ted Hellard, John Forzani and Doug Mitchell bought the Stampeders in 2005. While purchasing a club that had alienated fans and sponsors was a risky proposition, the new ownership trio had a vision to get the faltering franchise back on the rails. “Nobody was looking for great initial return on the dollar,” Mitchell has said.
Unlike Feterik, the ownership trio grew up in Calgary and understood the CFL game inside-out. In fact, Forzani had played lineman for the Stampeders, while Mitchell played for the Lions and was league commissioner in the 1980s. The most valuable asset Hellard brings to the table, meanwhile, may be his marketing skills honed as founder and owner of Critical Mass Inc., a Calgary-based design and strategy firm.
“The ownership that purchased the club from the previous owners came in as a white knight group, to be the chaperones of the club for the community,” says Ackles, who, despite his avowal not to speak of the previous reign, does make a roundabout reference to it. “We made it a mandate to reconnect with the fans. To do so, we had to bring integrity back to the football club.”
With a record of 4-14 in 2004, the trajectory could only be ascendant. The team hired CFL veteran Tom Higgins to coach the 2005 campaign. Jim Barker, who had been head coach for the Stamps in 2003, re-entered the fold as general manager and made several key signings, most notably that of quarterback Henry Burris and receiver Jeremaine Copeland. The Stampeders finished that season 11-7, but they dropped to 10-8 in 2006 and 7-10-1 in 2007, losing to the Saskatchewan Roughriders in the Western Division semifinals each year.
In December 2007, the team brought in John Hufnagel as coach and general manager. Hufnagel carried an unimpeachable pedigree: All-American quarterback for Penn State and three seasons as quarterback for the Denver Broncos, followed by a 12-year CFL career with the Saskatchewan Roughriders, Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Calgary Stampeders.
As a coach, he’d gained renown for his offensive schemes and talent as a “quarterback whisperer,” helping quarterbacks Doug Flutie and Jeff Garcia earn All-CFL honours.
Before joining the Stamps, Hufnagel was also the offensive coordinator with the New York Giants, where he endured scrutiny for his overuse of passing plays. The National Football League is a four-down league emphasizing the running game: hand the ball to a cannonball-skulled running back and let him chew up the field in four-yard bites. But Hufnagel’s pass-heavy offensive schemes aren’t a liability in the pass-happy Canadian Football League, especially if he’s got a mobile quarter back to plug into his system.
“Our plan for success has been very targeted,” says Ackles. “We had every intention of being champs. We didn’t go around trumpeting the fact. Never overpromise. But you can certainly overdeliver.”
And overdeliver they have. With a mobile quarterback, a stellar roster of wide receivers, and a ballsy, pass-oriented offensive set, the Stampeders finally won the Grey Cup last year. But, according to Ackles, the job is only half finished.
“Fans now have a sense of confidence in the Stamps. But we can’t afford to take their loyalty for granted,” he says. “The amount of fans in the stands is relative to the team on the field. Football is why we’re here.”
Still, Ackles acknowledges other factors do come into play when it comes to filling seats. “When a person invests in buying a ticket, a lot of what makes them do so isn’t from the advertising and promotional side, or even the on-field product, but that you’ve started a relationship with each individual and created a connection to your club by what you do outside the club,” he says.
That club-to-community connection weakened significantly during the Feterik era. The Stampeders weren’t selling hope, they were hawking a sham — not even a cleverly disguised one — and fans weren’t buying.
Fortunately, a plan existed to reignite that spark.
“My first year here, it was nothing to do with football,” says Ackles. “It was all about getting us back on the rails. Re-establishing the team in the community. Leaving a positive footprint.”
The Stampeders refostered their connection to the community by amping up their involvement in outreach events, charitable initiatives and by forging a partnership with the United Way.
In fact, they lent support to 192 events this year, compared to 133 events in 2007. “We have great players who also happen to be great ambassadors for the club and city, as well,” says Ackles. “It starts with football and ends with the positive footprint we leave within the community.”
Sitting in the sparsely decorated 2009 Grey Cup Festival Office, listening to Ackles give succinct and considered answers to my questions, I can’t help but feel there is something so hideously boring about a well-run business. Secretly, I’m hoping he’ll say something like: “Fateri sent us his resume. We’re considering bringing him back on board.” Alas, no such luck; in fact, things look pretty good.
There has never been a better time to be a Stamps fan. We’ve got a talented team backed by respected coaches and owners. We’re league champions. We’ve got the Grey Cup coming to town. But it won’t last forever.
In sports, it never does. Sooner or later a corrosive owner is liable to enter the picture, and then: BOOM! Everything blown to hell.
So take it from me, ficklest of sports fans, enjoy the Stamps now. I know I will.
0 comments