Al Wetmore takes reigns as Dal football head coach
New Dalhousie football coach Al Wetmore is not kidding when he says he wants commitment from his 48 charges in this year’s iteration of the newly formed squad.
When a team member slept in instead of joining the team for a morning practice, Wetmore brought the other 47 football Tigers to the offender’s house, piling in to wake him up and drag him from his bed to the field.
“We called it a long punt return,” Wetmore laughed as he talked about the incident, giving a glimpse into the coaching mindset that Wetmore says he will bring to the team this year.
“We’ve got talent; this team can play,” Wetmore added, “My job is to get these 48 athletes to commit to the system and buy in.”
After last season’s semifinal loss to the eventual champion Holland College Hurricanes, the 4-2-1 2013 Tigers brought in a new coaching staff in an attempt to change the philosophy of the team. Wetmore will become the team’s third head coach in the team’s five-year existence, taking over for last year’s leader Stuart MacLean, who stepped down at the end of last season.
Wetmore’s name came up quickly in the discussions of potential replacements, a process that MacLean helped returning general manager Rick Rivers and the team’s group of founders to make.
“He’s got a very good football resume, as well as a pretty darn good coaching acumen,” says Wilson. “We’ve all invested a lot of time and effort and Stu wanted to make sure that we had somebody that could take it to the next level. We’re hoping that under Alan we’ll do that.”
A former CFL standout for the Montreal Alouettes and Winnipeg Blue Bombers, Wetmore last coached the Sir John A. MacDonald Flames high school program. He brings with him offensive coordinator Evan Brown, offensive line coaches Shaun Carvery and Mike Hubley, and defensive line coaches Mark Hagget and Nate Annan.
The Tigers first test will be last year’s last place UNB Fredericton, who lost to Dal in last year’s consolation game.
“We want to win the league, obviously, and we wouldn’t all be here if we didn’t think we could” says Wetmore, “and that starts with Saturday’s game. I’m looking forward to seeing what we have when our feet are to the fire and it means something.”
At the very least the Tigers have proven they will leave no man behind in their pursuit of the 2014 championship, a fact proven quite definitively by the early morning antics of the new coach and the committed 47 who followed him to pick up a stray and bring him back into the fold.
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