Patrick Coristine manages video operations for the Varsity Blues football team. He is part of the 19-person coaching staff of the close to 100-player team, and a student at oise.
Before taking on the job, Coristine worked in Halifax for a year after graduating from St. Francis Xavier University, where he played four years of football. “I had a couple of years of eligibility remaining to actually play, and considered playing at U of T, but I also knew I eventually wanted to move on into a coaching role, and in the end, I pursued that instead,” Coristine explained.
This past summer, he was helping out with a football team in Cornwall, Ontario, his hometown, and asked Kirby Camplin, the coach of the Cornwall football team, if he knew of any opportunities with U of T’s football team. Coristine was called in for an interview while he was moving to Toronto for teacher’s college.
“During the meeting, I saw that they were using the same video system that St. Francis Xavier used while I was there, and mentioned it to them,” Coristine recalls. “They asked if I knew how to use it. I told them I knew a little bit through experience, and they said they needed someone to help out with it as it was their first year with the system. I said yes, and the rest is history.”
Coristine has a number of responsibilities with the Blues’ football team. The first is as a video co-ordinator. His duty here is to film games and practices, edit the footage, and make it accessible to the coaches and players at all times. Coristine also tags the videos with all the relevant information that allows coaches to find them in the Blues’ database. “This is the most important function of my role, as it is integral to scouting upcoming teams, as well as ourselves.”
His second role is as a study hall advisor for the football players. He has a strong relationship with the players, and they respect his authority, regardless of the similarity between their ages.
Coristine is also a coach, a responsibility he took up in January. “I currently coach the defensive backs, teaching them technique and system specific skills.”
But video is by far his most time-consuming job. “About an hour before practice I have to set up our cameras and systems around the field so we will be ready to film, organize the people that we have filming that day and make sure they know what we need filmed.
“There are two positions we film from: a wide view for receivers and dbs, and a tight view for offensive line and defensive line, running backs, and linebackers. During practice, it’s just a matter of making sure no problems happen with the equipment, and that we get everything we need.”
After the practices end, Coristine goes through the one to two hour process of editing, tagging, and uploading the film. Game day is much the same. “On Saturday we go through the same process as practice. Afterwards, the game has to be edited and tagged with specific information that the oua asks for, and then uploaded to a central database that all teams have access to,” he explains. “This has to be done by a specific time, normally four hours [after the game] or else you are faced with a fine by the league.
“Normally on Saturday night, Sunday, and Monday, I start breaking down our opponent’s film for the coming week, getting it ready for the coaches so they can compile scouting reports for themselves and the players, and then create their game plans. I help compile the scouting reports and on the defensive side of the ball put the game plan on paper, listing key players, plays, statistics, and common formations used by the upcoming team.”
The off-season is less demanding. The team has two practices a week that Coristine films, edits, and distributes, while running a study hall on the Mississauga campus for five hours a week. He is also involved in recruiting, calling new recruits, and scheduling visits for them to the campus.
Coristine’s off-season work may take less time, but it is no less important. He picks up patterns in the team’s play which is helping them during this offseason to experiment with different players’ strengths and weaknesses. “This off-season, I’ve gained more of a voice [with the coaches] in what we are doing on the defensive side of the ball because of the coaching role I have.”
With all of his time spent working with the footage and the coaches, Coristine has a unique perspective on what the Blues’ football team needs to do in order to be successful after years of disappointing seasons.
Coristine believes that the culture in the locker room needs to change. “One of the first things I noticed when I joined the team was that [among] some senior players who had been around for all the tough years, losing was acceptable, almost expected,” he notes. “However, as the season went on, we had new leaders begin to step up and react differently. Slowly but surely this attitude is changing. It doesn’t happen overnight, as anyone who has tried to change the culture of a team knows, but it is happening.”
The Blues’ video coordinator also believes that it is important to establish accountability among players. Last year, he says, there were a few players who did not attend enough practices and meetings. “Football season lasts 12 months a year, and players were not putting in the commitment needed to be successful,” he says. “You could also see on film when things got tough, certain players would stop giving maximum effort, as if they accepted it was inevitable they were going to lose.”
Coristine believes that although the coaches address this issue, the players need to hold each other more accountable for the efforts not being exerted. “A coach can motivate, [and] try to install accountability by threatening a player’s position on the depth chart, or by cutting a player, but the best way to change behaviour is through peer pressure. The coaching staff is cultivating an excellent group of leaders right now who are in turn establishing standards that are expected to be adhered to, and you can see the team buy into these standards, and hold each other accountable for effort and punctuality that was not present when I first joined the program.”
Coristine admits that time is also a major factor in any team’s success — establishing a successful culture and identity of a team requires time and patience. “We currently have a very young team with a lot of talent, but right now they are still learning the game. When the lights do start to go off in their heads, which should be in the next two years, U of T will be a very formidable force.”
The final step the Blues need is more financial investment in coaching. “If you take a look at all the elite teams in the cis, almost all of them have at the bare minimum three paid full-time coaches, with most having more,” he explains. “While this is a budgetary issue and beyond the football team’s control, any university that truly wants a successful team needs to invest in coaching.
“A lot of the issues on the team that prevented it from being competitive and winning were inherited by the current staff, but under [head] coach Greg Gary, [offensive coordinator] Tom Flaxman, and [special teams coordinator] Ken Mazurek, the players, and support staff, these issues are being worked out. Under their care, the University of Toronto will be competitive and successful again, and soon.”
