Mike Sherman finds the right fit with Alouettes

Mike Sherman covered a lot of ground all over the U.S. in his storied career.

He coached football at all levels of the game, from high school to college to the NFL, relocating his family 13 times in the process. 

But until taking the Montreal Alouettes head coaching job in December, his experience north of the 49th parrallel was limited to hopping over to Vancouver Island while he was coaching the Seahawks in Seattle and another short trip to Toronto for a Buffalo Bills game.

Canada remained uncharted territory. 

"Nothing other than my geography lessons in middle school," Sherman said. "I had a lot of respect for the pictures I used to see in National Geographic."

His only other reference point was provided by his parents, who honeymooned in Nova Scotia in 1950.

"They absolutely loved it," Sherman said.

Unlike his parents' northern vacation, Sherman's move to Montreal is far from a honeymoon. He has a lot of work to do.

The CFL Challenge

Sherman was hired to be the new head coach of the Montreal Alouettes after another failed season for the club.

The team, once called "The Beasts of the East" for their remarkable run of eight appearances in the Grey Cup between 2000 and 2010, hit bottom last year with a franchise-worst season of only three wins.

They'd missed the CFL playoffs for a third season in a row, and they were heading into a fifth year with no one to fill the shoes of Hall of Fame quarterback Anthony Calvillo, who retired after the 2013 season.

So when general manager Kavis Reed announced that Mike Sherman would be the next head coach, on the surface it seemed like a big get.

Sherman's resumé is attractive, including stops as the coach and general manager of the Green Bay Packers and head coach of the U.S. college powerhouse program, Texas A&M.

But considering the CFL is a different game than the one played in the U.S., and that Sherman had been coaching high school in Cape Cod since being fired from his last professional job with the Miami Dolphins in January of 2014, Reed's decision to bring him on board was bold.

It was also the case that Sherman didn't exactly jump at the opportunity to coach in Montreal. 

"It wasn't so much reservations about the CFL or Montreal. It was more that I had moved my family around 13 different times throughout my career," he said.

However, Montreal is only a five-hour drive from his home in Cape Cod and only about three hours from his daughter's university in New Hampshire, and that tipped the scales.

Now that he's landed in Montreal and is working his way through his first CFL training camp, he says he's impressed with what he sees on the field every day, especially from the Canadian players.

"I find these guys to be very intellectual, particularly the Canadians. Some are majors with finance, marketing and went to good colleges. I think they feel like it's a privilege to play football instead of an entitled right. I think they take it pretty seriously."

But Sherman admits there are one or two things that he'd change if he could.

"The players are engaging, very engaging. Almost to the point where they might need to talk less and not more.... It's definitely different. A lot more chatter. French Canadians do a lot more talking. You know, they're a talkative group of people, but they're good. They're good-hearted people."

Football has been Sherman's life

Despite the challenges of the X's and O's coming into the CFL, Sherman says he feels right at home being back on the field with a pro football team.

"Other than my wife and my children, football has been my life. And so when you're not doing it, you don't feel as whole as when you are doing it."

After Sherman finished college at Central Connecticut with an English major and political science minor, he started teaching in high school and coaching football.

Soon teaching and coaching became too much work, so Sherman chose to pursue football full-time. His first job was at the college level with Pittsburgh and it eventually led him to the NFL, with opportunities to coach legendary players like Brett Farve.

Sherman says what he likes most about the game is how, in many ways, it parallels life.

He admires the way teammates with different skill types and body types all have to use their different abilities to achieve success. 

"It also has a tendency to bring people closer together. And sometimes further apart. You really find out who people are when you're dealing with the highs and lows, the peaks and valleys of a football season," Sherman said. 

Bringing the Als back to glory

In a stark contrast to last year when then-newly minted GM Reed told CBC that fans should expect the Alouettes to be competing for a Grey Cup, Sherman is a taking a more measured approach to the team's expectations this season.

He says that the team is simply "a work in progress" and adds that he believes that the players in the locker room have the right character to handle the ups and down of a long CFL season.

"A Mike Sherman football team hopefully is a team that makes the equation 2 + 2 = 5.... That is to say, your team is greater than the sum of the parts."

The Alouettes play their final pre-season game at Percival Molson stadium on Saturday against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. They open the season on the road against the B.C. Lions on June 16.

The home opener is on Friday, June 22 against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.