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June 3, 2016

From the front line to the sideline

Defensive line coach Corey Mace during 2016 training camp (Photo by Geoff Crane)

It certainly isn’t rare to see players become coaches in their respective sports.

In fact, it makes sense. When you’ve had the majority of your life based around a game and played at its highest levels, you’ll undoubtedly know a thing or two about what it takes to excel.

What is at times slightly rare is a player making the jump to a professional coach right out the gate and finding success in the job right away.

However, the Stampeders seem to have found the magic formula to make it work after seeing Dave Dickenson, and more recently newly minted defensive coordinator DeVone Claybrooks, jump right into coaching positions following successful playing careers.

Now a new name hopes to add to that distinguished list of playmakers now making the plays, former D-lineman and fan favourite Corey Mace.

After missing all of last season with a problematic back injury, Mace decided the time was right to move on to life after football.

Mace says the plan was to always transition from the gridiron to the sidelines, whether with Calgary or somewhere else.

Defensive line coach Corey Mace during 2016 training camp (Photo by Molly Campbell)

 

The timing worked out just right and an opening became available on new head coach Dave Dickenson’s staff when Rich Stubler headed east to don blue threads and Claybrooks was promoted to defensive boss.

“I had an amazing opportunity that I could not turn down to come in here and work under Clay and be part of Dickenson’s first coaching staff and have Huff being around, too,” said Mace. “I loved it as a player and I’m loving it even more as a coach.”

As much fun as Mace makes it sound, the transition isn’t as easy as taking off a helmet and pads and picking up a whistle and clipboard.

There is a steep learning curve and tricky relationships to navigate as you go from a teammate to the boss almost overnight.

Luckily, Mace has seen this story before — he saw his former Stamps teammate DeVone Claybrooks become defensive line coach back in 2012. Coach Clay has been generous with his advice to his protégé.

“(Mace) does a good job and his group understands he’s going down the same route as myself,” says Claybrooks. “They know how to handle it like pros and he’s doing well.”

Reflecting on his transition from the field to the coaching ranks, Claybrooks calls the job change a blessing and a curse at times, knowing that even though some of the men in the locker room were his friends on and off the field, he now was in a position of authority and needed to command that respect.

“Those are the relationship dynamics he’s going to have to adjust to,” says Claybrooks of Mace.

 

Defensive coordinator DeVone Claybrooks and defensive line coach Corey Mace during 2016 training camp (Photo by Molly Campbell)

However, he notes that Mace was already on his way to coaching before he made the actual jump, as he was a go-to resource for teammates during his playing days.

“He was a detailed player and he knew what everybody did on the line,” says Claybrooks.

“He wasn’t the most athletic guy by any means,” jabs Claybrooks, cracking his familiar smile, “but he would be great technique-wise and knew what he had to do and how to do it and he could coach young guys.”

Seeing his knack for coaching, Claybrooks says it was natural to extend that duty to Mace once he decided to retire.

A former teammate of both coaches and Stamps resident sack-master Charleston Hughes can’t help but laugh when he thinks about the two men now calling the shots but he also respects what they are doing.

As the longest-serving member of the defensive line, he understands that his fellow linemen will follow his lead in how he responds to the coaches.

“I know (the coaches) have respect for me as a player and I respect them as players turned coaches,” says Hughes. “It’s a journey I possibly want to take further down the road.

“But it’s one of those things where it’s funny to see Mace coaching me now. Now I have to kind of listen to what they say now. It was the same thing with Clay, too.”

As for Mace’s qualifications, Hughes agrees the foundation was set long ago as he saw him battle numerous injuries on the back end of his time as a player. It was during those years that Hughes saw Mace try to help the team even though he couldn’t be on the field.

“My whole life has been predicated around this game,” says Mace. “I wanted to get into coaching.

“It was another transition thing that was easy for me. I’d been through it with Clay before, going from an unathletic player to unathletic coach,” says Mace, evening the jab tally with Claybrooks.

“Clay set the example for me, but again, any questions I have or approach I want to have with the players, I can ask Clay because he’s done it before. The guys in the room, I feel like they respected me as a player and now as a coach. We like to have fun on and off the field but when it’s time to go to work, we work.”

And work they will with the pre-season in full swing and barely two weeks left before the ball starts flying for real.

That’s when the Stamps new defensive corps will get their chance to show that the parts may be changing but the results will hopefully remain the same with more W’s in the standings column than L’s.