Column: No exchange rate on perfect endings

What does the Canadian Football League’s coach of the year for 2018 do during a pandemic?

“We’re acting like the season’s still a go,” Dave Dickenson of the Calgary Stampeders said Wednesday. “We’re going to basically put our playbook together, script training camp – so if it does go, we’re going to be ready.

“We’re acting like it’s normal, even though there are protocols and conference calls about the fact that it’s not.”

Dickenson’s status in Canada – he’s been coaching for the Stamps for 11 years, four as head coach – might be as lofty as what he built in Montana, first at Great Falls C.M. Russell and then at the University of Montana.

He was the CFL’s Most Outstanding Player in 2000 and quarterbacked teams to Grey Cup championships in 1998, 2006 and 2008.

Then he transitioned to coach, and on the way to guiding the Stamps to the 2018 Grey Cup title he was selected to the College Football Hall of Fame.

That, friends, was a solid year. And while 2020 has been big bag of suck so far, Dickenson is putting his best cleat forward.

“I wish the weather would turn,” he allowed, as a cold front swept the northwest. “That would enhance what we could do up here. But I’d rather try to be positive than be paranoid.”

Here are some positives: Dickenson’s Calgary teams have gone 53-17-2 in the regular season and played in three Grey Cups, winning one. He is one of nine people to make both the NCAA Hall of Fame and the CFL’s.

And he keeps scanning the Big Sky Conference rosters for the players that fall through the NFL cracks – “That’s how I ended up here,” he said – and can help his team win.

He watched Griz quarterback Dalton Sneed play. “He was a pretty impressive kid,” Dickenson said. “He had a good year, too, but he’s a pretty impressive person.”

The Edmonton Eskimos were on Sneed already. “Then they look him off and before I could figure it out Winnipeg had him,” Dickenson said.

When Kalispell’s Mike Reilly neared the end of his contract in Edmonton in 2018, of course Dickenson knew.

“We were always big fans of Mike, but we never had an opportunity to talk to him,” he said. “He was Edmonton’s property, and then they gave the BC Lions the right to negotiate with him before he was released.

“And we have a pretty danged quarterback already in Bo Levi Mitchell.”

A guy that is on Calgary’s list is UC Davis quarterback Jake Maier. Not on the list? Dante Olson, the reigning Buck Buchanan Award winner from Montana.

“He did so well at the (NFL) Combine nobody thinks we’ll see him for a while,” said Dickenson.

“I’ve been following Dante pretty close. Sure hope he makes it, but if he doesn’t I sure wouldn’t mind coaching him.”

So is he is preparing for the Canadian part of the CFL draft at the end of this month. A global draft is to follow, though Dickenson is less sure when that will take place.

There are surely players out there that might not quite be ready for the prime time (NFL) but prepared for singles and three downs to make 10 yards. It was certainly a fit for Dickenson, after winning the 1995 Division I Football Championship and becoming UM’s only Walter Payton Award winner.

The NFL isn’t looking for 5-foot-10 quarterbacks, they’re looking for athletes like those Dickenson was inducted with: Charles Woodson, Calvin Johnson and Ed Reed.

At UM’s press conference to fete his College Hall selection, Dickenson said he wasn’t sure he’d pass the eye test for anyone.

“I didn’t know if I was going to play another game, after the championship game,” he said, staying positive. “And that would have been fine. Perfect ending.”