Last winter, Dwayne Cameron drove the family car from his home in Kitchener to the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Alabama — a round trip of almost 4,000 kilometres — on the off chance he might land a full-time job coaching football.
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“There was no guarantee of meeting anybody,” said Cameron, who had been a part-time coach with the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks the last six seasons. “I saw Marcel (Bellefeuille) at one of the events and he was kind enough to give me some time and that’s how this all got started.”
The Hamilton head coach — himself a veteran of the CIS ranks — liked what he saw from Cameron and yesterday the Tiger-Cats announced him as an assistant coach for special teams and defence.
“It comes down to opportunity,” Bellefeuille said. “If you have somebody who is qualified, it’s nice to see a Canadian coach get the chance to develop.”
This is the second year that Bellefeuille and the Ticats have offered one-year positions intended to provide former players or Canadian coaches the opportunity to get coaching experience at the pro level.
Last season, Canadian Football League vets Travis Moore and Joe Hagins held developmental roles with the club and Moore is now the receivers coach in Saskatchewan.
This is actually Cameron’s second stint with the Ticats: he was drafted by the club in 1996 after playing high school ball in Guelph and college football in Louisiana. He never played a game for the Cats, however.
“My goal is to last longer with the organization than I did my first time through,” he said, chuckling.
The 37-year-old father of three says he hopes to take full advantage of the opportunity and turn that long drive to Mobile into a career in the coaching ranks.
“I knew that if I was serious about it, driving to the Senior Bowl is what I had to do — that’s how bad I wanted it,” Cameron said.
NOTES: The Ticats also announced two guest coaches for training camp. Donnavan Carter is a former CFL player now the defensive co-ordinator at the University of Toronto Blues and Blair Thompson is the running backs coach with the Regina Rams. Both are familiar with the Ticat systems — Carter played for defensive co-ordinator Greg Marshall in Winnipeg while Thompson was at Hamilton’s training camp last year.
PHOTO: Dwayne Cameron on far right
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