After three years as head coach of the Varsity Blues Football Team, Greg DeLaval is going home.
As of April 15, 2011, DeLaval will be moving back to his native city of Calgary, and taking on an assistant coach position with the University of Calgary Dinos.
DeLaval resigned on March 12 so that he could be closer to his wife Marlo, and his two- and four-year-old sons. This past season he led the Varsity Blues to their best record in 15 years.
Although he never thought he’d consider an assistant job over a head job, DeLaval and Dinos head coach Blake Nill began talking when he was out West recruiting for the Blues. He changed his tune after considering the fact that he already owns a home in Calgary. His wife was able to get a job there, and his eldest son would be able to start school in a stable environment.
Marlo and their two children currently live in Nova Scotia, where she is from and where DeLaval played university football and started his coaching career.
“We [have] an opportunity to be together in a way, and we live in a very good neighbourhood. We [know] where our son was going to go to school for the first time,” DeLaval says. “All the moons lined up while I was out there.”
DeLaval has made his mark during his time at U of T.
In his first game as head coach, on an interim basis back in 2008, the Blues broke their 49-game losing streak, the longest in CIS history, against the Waterloo Warriors.
This season, DeLaval watched his team come out on top in one of the biggest upsets in CIS football history. The Blues, who were ranked second last in the nation, toppled the Ottawa Gee Gees, Canada’s second-best university football team.
DeLaval, however, considers his biggest achievement as head coach to be off the field.
“Those two games were huge, but probably the biggest thing was that we changed the culture. We’ve changed it from a program where there was a lot of losing,” says DeLaval. “What’s contributed to that was not only the coaching, but also that the university has put these wonderful facilities together. The kids want to win, they want to work out, they’re committed, and they’re having a good time because they’re having a real true student athlete experience.”
He hopes his players will remember to ‘live above the line.’
“We say ‘live above the line’ and what that means is that you’re a University of Toronto student and you have to live by higher standards,” DeLaval said. “It’s not something that is just for their university days, it’s something I want them to live by during their whole lives. It’s about being the best academically, it’s about being the best athlete, it’s about being the best in the community, and it’s about being a good person.
“Our kids, at some point, are going to be fathers, they’re going to be husbands, they’re going to be employees or employers, and their conduct is important. I want them to one day look back and tell their kids that it’s important to live above the line. When you slip below the line and you compromise your values, or don’t live by high standards, I don’t think you’ll be a happy person. That’s the message that I’ve been trying to send to them the last three years.”
And Blues quarterback Jordan Scheltgen understands the message DeLaval has been trying to get across to him and the rest of the team.
“Don’t be average — he tried to instil that in all of us,” Scheltgen said. “It’s not only so that we’ll be good players, but so that we’ll be good people.”
“He’s all about class,” added Blues defensive back Hugo Lopez. “Football players have a stereotype, and he’s trying to change that. He wants people to look up at us and say ‘They’re football players, and they’re also good people.’”
U of T has named Greg Gary, who played at California State University, Fullerton, had a brief stint with the Los Angeles Rams, and four years with the Hamilton Tigercats, as DeLaval’s successor.
DeLaval knows that the football program will continue on its current path with Gary as the new coach.
“Greg Gary is going to continue on, he’s not going to disrupt anything, he’s just going to support it, and continue to challenge the coaches and the players to make the program better,” DeLaval said.
DeLaval’s time at U of T was cut shorter than he had planned. He admitted that he had expected to be U of T’s head coach for a long time and thought he might retire here.
While he is happy to reunite with his family, DeLaval still feels that he is losing a big part of his life when he leaves Toronto.
“I’ll miss the people here. I made a lot of good friends here, I really liked being here and I thought I’d be here a long time,” DeLaval said. “I’ll miss the players and the coaches. I’d love to be here for the next couple of years to see this through. The coaches and the players are going to take it to where it needs to go.”
DeLaval has made football his life during his time in Toronto, and now he is focusing on his family.
“I gave everything to that program. I put my family behind the program, and I just can’t do that anymore,” DeLaval said.
“I’ve never seen a coach work that hard,” said Lopez. “Day-in and day-out, he’s thinking of things to do that will make the team better, especially the little things.”
Scheltgen also recognizes how much DeLaval has put into the program at U of T, and though he will be gone, DeLaval will still be on their side.
“Deep down he’s a Blue,” Scheltgen said. “He put everything he had into the team, and I know he’ll be rooting for us when he’s gone.”
DeLaval believes that the Varsity Blues will be a top football program in the CIS in the near future and even expecting he might see a repeat of what happened in 1993, when Toronto beat the Calgary Dinos and won the Vanier Cup.
“Watch this program in two or three years,” said De Laval. “They’re going to be outstanding, nationally competitive.”
Greg DeLaval played high school football at St. Mary’s in Calgary, winning a city championship in 1986, and was later inducted into their hall of fame.
He was a wide receiver for the St. Francis Xavier X-Men, playing there in 1990 and then from 1994–97. He was a team captain for three seasons (1995–1997), and was named an academic All-Canadian as well as winning the Marcel Lussier Award for community service in 1997.
He was an assistant head coach from 1998–2002 at St. FX, serving as offensive coordinator. He was also responsible for recruiting, and raised over $60,000 for the football program over a two-year span.
He was an assistant coach for the Varsity Blues from 2003–2005, serving as special teams coach and receivers coach, as well as the assistant coordinator for player development. He was also responsible for building a national recruiting program.
He was the special teams coordinator and offensive assistant at the University of Calgary from 2006–2007, and was responsible for recruiting in Central and Eastern Canada. In 2007 the team led the CIS in rushing and special teams finished on top of every category except for one in the Canada West conference.
In 2008 he returned to Toronto as the interim head coach, and in his first game the Blues defeated the Waterloo Warriors 18–17, snapping their CIS record 49-game losing streak, and finished the season 2-6.
