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Pleased with Wally’s backing
Courtesy Vancouver Province:
In the ranks of professional sports it isn’t always what you know, but who you know — which puts Carl Kidd and Alondra Johnson in pretty good company as two of Wally Buono’s favourite former players.
Not that either of them were a teacher’s pet or a locker-room snitch — in fact both of them butted heads with the head coach lots — but like Buono who was a linebacker as a player, Kidd and Johnson were linebackers. And linebackers are, uh, a special breed.
Now both are trying to take what they learned as players under Buono-built teams in Calgary (Johnson) and here with the Lions and parlay it as Buono did. So they’re helping out on the defensive side of the ball at Lions training camp.
Kidd, who retired after the Lions won the Grey Cup in 2006, is coaching at University of Arkansas in Pine Bluff. Johnson began his CFL playing career with B.C. in 1989 under Joe Galat and then in ’90 with Larry Kuharich, Jim Young and Bob O’Billovich (and he still wants to be a football coach!).
On the W.J. Mouat field after Sunday morning’s practice, A.J. thought he’d played three seasons with the Lions at the start. It just seemed like it. Kuharich was fired after 10 games, hall of famer Young coached one game and then they hired O’Billovich to finish the season.
A.J. wisely played out his option and hooked up with Buono in Calgary in 1991, the year after Wally got his first head coaching assignment. He finished his extraordinary career in 2005 with GM Roy Shivers, who’d brought his veteran leadership to the Saskatchewan Roughriders. It was Shiv who had recruited him for the Lions in ’89.
It’s going to be a busy year for Johnson. He moved back to Alberta from Los Angeles recently to be near his two daughters in Medicine Hat. Plus, he’s being inducted into the CFL Hall of Fame in September.
Kidd, who played for the Oakland Raiders and Minnesota Vikings, came to the Lions in 2000 and won a Grey Cup his first season and another seven years later in his last.
Besides both being linebackers and playing for Buono, who will go down as the CFL’s most successful coach, Johnson and Kidd are intent on making coaching a career. It’s why they are here imparting to youngsters some of their vast knowledge from playing at an extremely high level for so long in the CFL.
“I sent my resumé out to some CFL teams and got some replies,” said Johnson, who had spent the last few years looking after his ailing parents in L.A. “I have faith I’ll get the opportunity when the time is right.
“I’m going to set up a football program in Medicine Hat. I’ve helped out at Medicine Hat High before and I’ll do that again.
“I’ve got a wealth of knowledge and I think I’ve got a lot to offer, but I’m happy, healthy and feel good about where I’m at in my life. It’s a blessing going into the Hall of Fame. It’s an elite club.”
Kidd, who talked as big and loud as he played, seemed surprisingly quiet on Sunday. He certainly wasn’t the noisiest or most demonstrative coach on the field. Receivers coach Jacques Chapdelaine was noisier, even.
“My travel through life has helped prepare me to be a good coach,” said Kidd. “Everything I’ve been through in my playing career will help. But if it weren’t for Wally and [Lions defensive co-ordinator] Mike Benevides, they taught me how to be a pro. We had our differences, but I owe them. I made a lot of mistakes when I was younger.”
It’s a good assumption Buono will help if he can.
