Coordinating D comes naturally to Nelson; Coach linked to hometown club throughout his football career
John MacKinnon
Edmonton Journal
To players and other observers of a certain age, Eskimo Defensive Coordinator Mark Nelson, with his shaggy, greywhite hair and craggy good looks, resembles and definitely sounds like Nick Nolte.
Not that this comparison to the actor famous for, among other roles, playing wide receiver Phil Elliott in the Hollywood version of Pete Gent’s novel North Dallas Forty, resonates with all of the Eskimos.
“I don’t even know who Nick Nolte is,” said 26-year-old Eskimo defensive tackle Don Oramasionwu. “Is he an actor, or what? Coach has actor hair, that’s all I know.”
Coach also has a raspy, gruff voice made all the more so as a result of Nelson’s hollering out instructions to his players at twice daily practice sessions during training camp at Commonwealth Stadium.
“I have a tendency to yell a little bit.” Nelson said. “It will get back (to normal). Once we get out of twoadays, it will be better.”
Whatever, Nelson is comfortable in his own skin in his new role with the Eskimos after serving as the CFL club’s linebackers coach for a season-and-a-half.
Little wonder. Nelson is a coordinator for the team his father, CFL Hall of Famer Roger, an offensive lineman, played for from 1954 to ’67. Roger Nelson helped the Eskimos win the 1954 and 1956 Grey Cups and is one of the 28 ex-players whose names and jersey numbers are displayed on the Wall of Honour at Commonwealth Stadium.
Mark Nelson was born in Edmonton, grew up around Clarke Stadium, hanging out with the equipment guys, and also in Calgary, where he played his high school football.
“I’ve been involved with the Eskimo organization for a long time,” Nelson said. “Whether it was as a kid, or I played against it, or I coached against, or I coached for it.
“It’s kind of neat.”
Nelson played linebacker and some fullback for the Stampeders (1980-85) and Saskatchewan Roughriders (1986). His first coaching stint with the Eskimos was as special teams coordinator and running backs coach in 1993-94, back when Ron Lancaster was head coach and Rich Stubler was the defensive coordinator.
Following CFL stints in San Antonio in ’95 and Toronto in ’96, Nelson worked for 12 years at a variety of NCAA schools before returning to the CFL with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 2009 as that club’s defensive coordinator and linebackers coach.
His second hitch with the Eskimos began partway through the 2010 season, when he replaced Dan Kepley as linebackers coach.
As defensive coordinator, Nelson replaced his boss last season, Stubler, who departed to take a similar position with the BC Lions at season’s end.
“Much like Stubler, Mark comes from the Eskimo pedigree,” said Eskimo Head Coach Kavis Reed. “Those guys have some fondness for the Eskimos and the way the Eskimos have played defence.
“He’s player friendly in the sense that he’s going to make certain that every ounce of time is spent refining the information so that the players can understand it clearly. He is anal about that, in making certain that the players understand what they’re trying to accomplish.”
Nelson pays ceaseless attention to detail, in other words, or, as Reed put it, the “minutiae” of defensive football.
“He’ll give you a game plan that looks like a playbook,” said veteran linebacker T.J. Hill. “Of all the coaches I’ve played for, from Little League to high school to college to the professional level, he is definitely one of the hardest workers I’ve been around.
“He puts the time in.”
Nelson’s defence will be different from that of Stubler, who favoured a 3-4 alignment, with three down linemen and four linebackers.
There will be lots of pressure on the quarterback, blended with some “cat-and-mouse, some deception to keep offences guessing,” Hill said.
An organizational complaint last year was that Stubler’s defence was strong on scheme, but short on fundamentals, like sound tackling technique, and so forth.
“Hopefully, if we coach it well, we can do a variety of things,” Nelson said of his approach to defence.
“But a lot of it is the same, and with good technique.
“Because at the end of the day, the fundamental stuff is what’s going to carry you through. There has to be that foundation there, and there have to be some rules they can fall back on.
“Usually when the bullets start flying, we just revert to our fundamentals or our basic stuff and we’ll be OK.”
It’s got to help that Nelson’s football foundation, in a variety of ways, is rock solid.
jmackinnon@ edmontonjournal.com
Twitter.com/rjmackinnon
Check out my blog , Sweatsox, at edmontonjournal.com/ blogs