2 - of College Football Games
2 - of College Football Games 2 - of College Football Games
Anyone who was there in the in the rickety student stands of beloved old J.W. Little Stadium and watched Greg Marshall carry the ball remembers one thing above all others. He was strong and fast and powerful, one of the finest running backs ever produced in Canadian college football, a Mustang from 1978-81 and the winner of the Hec Crighton trophy as the country’s outstanding player in 1980. But Marshall’s trademark as a player was his determination. Once his nose was pointed toward the endzone, it took a gang of tacklers to stop him - and every time he was denied, you knew that he’d be back, that it was only a matter of time before he reached his goal. Those who got in his way did so at their own peril. There have been many great Western running backs through the years, including Marshall’s own brother Blake, but to these, perhaps nostalgic eyes, he was the best of the best. Marshall’s successful second career as a coach has been built on exactly that same kind of dedication, commitment and work ethic. During his playing days as a Mustang, Marshall was part of a great Western team that won four consecutive Yates Cups. He was drafted by the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League, and was on his way to claiming a starting job when a knee injury sadly ended his career after three seasons. Marshall came back to Western in 1984 to enter teacher’s college. Head coach Larry Haylor, sensing an opportunity, asked him if he’d like to join the Mustangs’ coaching staff while finishing his degree. Marshall threw himself into learning the game from the sidelines. As the Mustangs offensive coordinator from 1992 to 1996, he established himself as one of the best young coaching minds in the college game, and was on board by Stephen Brunt The Globe and Mail UWO BA 81, MA 82 for two Vanier Cup victories. In 1997, he was hired away by McMaster University to revive its nearly moribund football program. The Marauders had won a total of six games the past four seasons combined, and none at all in the previous year. The improvements under Marshall were immediate. Building a team from the foundations up—among other things out-recruiting the competition—he would finish with a combined record of 42-12-2, and with four consecutive Yates Cup victories between 2000 and 2003. Marshall’s team also produced its own Hec Crighton-winning running back, Jesse Lumsden. In 2000, Marshall was named the CIS coach of the year - just the second person (the other was Rick Zmich) to have been recognized during his career as both the best player and best coach in Canadian college football. In December 2003, Marshall was hired to turn around another dysfunctional football organization, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, becoming the first CIS coach to make the leap directly to a head coaching position in the Canadian Football League. Again, the results were immediate: a 1-17 team the year before Marshall arrived, the Tiger-Cats finished 9-8-1 in 2004 and he was named the CFL’s coach of the year - the first rookie head coach to win that honour since Ray Jauch in 1971 . When Marshall’s Hamilton tenure came to an end four games into the 2006 CFL season, The University of Western Ontario made sure that he wouldn’t be idle for very long. He was hired almost immediately as offensive coordinator of the Mustangs with the understanding that on Haylor’s retirement at the end of that season, Marshall would replace him as head coach. “The timing was perfect,” he says. “And Western is where I played, where I grew up, where I learned football. It was like coming home for me.” In his first year at the helm, the Mustangs finished with a 4-4 regular season record after starting 0-4, and then going on a roll that took them all the way to a Yates Cup win over the University of Guelph. “That was ahead of schedule,” Marshall admits. Last season, even though they were starting five freshmen on offence, including two on the offensive line, Marshall’s Mustangs finished the regular season 7-1, won the Yates Cup again (Marshall is now 16-4 in the Ontario university championship game as a player and coach), beat Saint Mary’s in the Mitchell Bowl (his first CIS bowl game victory as a head coach), and finished with Western’s record 12th Vanier Cup appearance, the first since 1995, where they were beaten by a powerful team from Laval. Marshall enters the 2009 season minus standout defensive lineman Vaughn Martin, who left after his second year for the San Diego Chargers, (the first CIS underclassman ever to land in the NFL) but with a team seasoned by last year’s long post-season run, and led by fifth year quarterback Michael Faulds. It is, he understands, one of those relatively rare windows of opportunity for a college coach, when everything could fall into place. “Michael Faulds is the best quarterback in the country,” Marshall says. “He’s outstanding, a fierce competitor. That’s half of it right there. We will be competitive in all of the games that Michael plays.” Greg Marshall lives in North London with his wife Joan, and his sons Donnie (a quarterback on the Mustangs’ squad), Brian and Tommy. 8 8
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- Page 6 and 7: 2009-10 Season Outlook LONDON, Ont.
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- Page 16 and 17: Entering his fifth and final season
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- Page 22 and 23: DA’SHAWN THOMAS #2 - RuNNiNG BACK
- Page 24 and 25: RYAN TREMBLAY #8 - RECEiVER Third Y
- Page 26 and 27: JERiMY HiPPERSON #22 - RuNNiNG BACK
- Page 28 and 29: MiKE SPENCE #36 - DEFENSiVE BACK Fi
- Page 30 and 31: ZACHARY POLLARi #55 - OFFENSiVE LiN
- Page 32 and 33: LiAM O’NEiLL #82 - WiDE RECEiVER
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- Page 36 and 37: Rushing Most Yards Single Game: 317
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- Page 46 and 47: Western has had a storied tradition
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