Fred Knip has seen plenty as a football coach over the many years patrolling the sidelines for various Peewee, Bantam, Midget and high school teams in Lacombe.
Now the veteran coach has a different view from the sideline as the head coach of the Central Alberta Buccaneers senior men’s football team.
Knip stepped in after some turmoil within the Alberta Football League involving last years coach Devon Hand. It resulted in some suspensions, players from outside the region going back east and Hand stepping away.
He was asked by the Bucs to consider the opportunity after a long conversation which ended with an offer to coach.
“I said sure. I didn’t say sure right away. I have a wife so I said I should check with the Minister of the Interior and we’ll go from there,” he said.
He is already coaching the bantam team in Lacombe so he had to make sure he wasn’t going to burn out by taking on the Bucs job but he’s certain he can make the two work. He did have a some requirements which needed to be met.
“I’m not interested in just coaching so we can have a fun time. We’re here to coach to win and the winning means discipline,” he said about his philosophy going in.
Knip says if you want to play you have to practice.
“If you’re too good to practice I may decide you are an endangerment to the rest of the team, If the quarterback for example is going to throw right, his blind side’s on the left-hand side and the guard on the left side is too lazy to stop some veteran bull coming through they don’t have a quarterback anymore.”
Knip has 20 years of coaching experience to draw on but he is quick to recognize some of the tactics used in high school players won’t wash with the grown men who play in the AFL.
The playbook at this level will look a lot more different than one used at the bantam level, he added.
By his own admission Knip says he’s not a very good tactician, not really an x’s and o’s kind of coach.
“I am good at reading a player to get something out of him that maybe he wouldn’t want to get out for someone else.”
He describes the Bucs as an incredible group of guys who are very respectful, accepting and they work well together which is one reason for last year’s success and his feeling they can reach that level in 2017.
“Maybe not because of the talent but certainly because of the desire. Now we do have talent, some of it is latent, some of it is buried, some of it was not able to shine last year,” he said, indicating with some roster changes other players will get a chance to show what they can do.
He says he doesn’t micro-coach these guys as they all have some good experience but instead he has his own ideas on how to do things and time will tell if they are the right fit for the talent on the field.
Knip says he’s never shied away from a challenge and the one in front of him right now is understanding the system the Bucs have in place right now. As a team he says the Bucs may be slightly smaller on the offensive line and defensive lines but he hopes to make up for that by being much quicker than the other teams running plays and reacting on defense.
“I hated losing at tiddlywinks or a game of crib. We have to win so how are we going to win. So here’s what we have, there are the parameters and that’s what we’ve got to work with.”
The Bucs are 2-1 on the year and have the bye this weekend. Their next game is June 24th when they host the powerful Fort McMurray Monarchs.
