Saskatchewan Roughriders head coach Craig Dickenson would rather be talking about what his team needs to do to win what was to be their season opener Friday night against Montreal, but instead he is talking about a variety of other things including the current acrimony between the league and the players association.
Commissioner Randy Ambrosie is under a tremendous amount of pressure for moves being made or lack of them, but he is getting a vote of confidence from Dickenson.
“I think Randy is doing a great job. “Dickenson told 620 CKRM’s Michael Ball in an interview that aired on “Sportscage”. “I think a lot of what you see is just noise. Players are frustrated because they want to know what’s going on. I sent an e-mail on Sunday night to the players saying the only answer we can have right now is not the answer we want so relax, control what you can control and keep your fingers crossed that we can have a season because the reality is we all want to play a season so don’t get uptight. Randy is a straight-up guy and I think he is doing everything he can to help the league so I have full faith in him.”
Dickenson, who is nearing the end of his mandatory 14-day quarantine since returning to Regina from the U-S, is also talking about the recent news from the league about having to cut the football operations cap by $600,000. He says it is news that didn’t really come as a surprise.
“No one is happy to hear about that, but the reality is we all know what the road is ahead of us.” Dickenson said. ‘We know there is going to be tough sledding for the next couple of years to make up for some of the revenue that has been lost. One of the first things I will be doing when my quarantine is over is to meet with Jeremy (GM Jeremy O’Day) to look at that and see how it affects us. One thing I will say is with the leadership we have with Craig (CEO Craig Reynolds) and Jeremy is that you know when they say we have to tighten our belts to get by, you don’t question that because they are good people, they are honest and we trust them.
Dickenson also had some comments on race relations and what is happening across North America and the World in the wake of the death of Black man George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis. He thinks what the world needs to do is adopt the locker-room mentality as many different races are represented in the room.
“That’s the one place where all the differences go away.” Dickenson stated. “We all know we are different, but when we are pulling for a common cause and a common purpose we seem to forget about those differences and focus on the similarities. I think it would be worthwhile to look into that as a coach and maybe on the academic side to look at and ask what happens in a sports locker-room that brings people together.”
