REGINA — When the Saskatchewan Roughriders won the 112th Grey Cup championship, it would be easy to pick any number of post-game on-field moments as a highlight.
The celebration with family and friends, the pomp and circumstance of the on-stage presentation, and finally, the chance to hoist the Grey Cup itself. For Riders' offensive coordinator Marc Mueller, the best of times came not from anything that happened on the field, but in the moments afterwards as the team celebrated in the locker room. Just the players, the team and their direct supporters, enjoying the fruits of their labour and the culmination of victory after a season of success.
“It’s the guys who go to practice every single day and have fun with each other,” Mueller said during a conversation with Barney Shynkaruk on The SportsCage.
“A bunch of adult children who play sports and who aren’t overly adults most of the time and even less of adults at that time. It's pure joy, everyone hugging everyone else and having fun, doing stuff that would be very, very frowned upon if it was done at any other time other than after a championship. So that’s my favourite memory and I hope it sticks with me for a long time.”
Of course, the celebrations immediately after the game were only a sampling of the party that was to come. The Riders still had to return to Regina from Winnipeg, and once they arrived in the Queen City, an even bigger bash was in the cards. That came in the form of the victory parade, and while Mueller — who hails from Regina — was too young to remember 1989 and didn’t recall the 2007 and 2013 parades, he knew it was going to be special. And to be a part of it all was something else altogether.
“I thought it was incredible,” Mueller said. “You picture what it’s going to be like seeing pictures from the front page of the paper and things like that, but to be in it and seeing how many people there were wearing green, all ages, kids, older people, middle-aged people. It was really, really cool and I’m glad everyone got to take part in it. It’s a Saskatchewan team, it’s a community team and it’s great for all of us to celebrate together.”
While the Grey Cup celebrations were a major highlight of the whole run, there was another moment Mueller pointed to as his “favourite as a coach or player to this point in my life” — and it didn’t come at Princess Auto Stadium. No, that would be The Drive, the final minute surge down the field during the West Final that led to Tommy Nield catching the game-winning pass against the B.C. Lions to send Saskatchewan to the Grey Cup. A major component of the drive was how efficient it looked from start to finish, and that was for a reason — the team regularly practices those exact situations, and as a result, everyone was on the same page when it came to putting things together on the field.
“Sometimes you can call plays and not everyone knows why you're doing it, but it felt like on that drive everyone understood what we were trying to do and what we were trying to accomplish,” Mueller said, “It wasn’t until I saw Tommy (catch the winning pass) that I went crazy in the box. It’s something I’ll remember forever.”
As is always the case, after all the celebrations and success, the time comes to move on. The Riders are into their off-season work, though calling it ‘work’ might be a bit of a misnomer when it comes to Mueller, an admitted football junkie.
“I always get made fun of by my in-laws and stuff like that because whenever there’s football on, I’ll try and watch it,” he said. “Like a Tuesday afternoon bowl game on December 28, I’ll try and watch that. I feel like the only way to get better is by doing, so I’m going to watch football.
“You try and watch other CFL teams and whether it’s college football or the NFL, there’s always stuff out there. I’ve heard it said a million times and it’s true in football, usually the guys who have the most success are the best thieves. The game has been played 113 years here in Canada, you can run the ball, you can pass the ball and you can kick the ball and there are only so many options after that.”
You can check out the complete SportsCage interview by clicking below:
