Ed Hervey is known in media circles as guarded and curt, but following his introductory (reintroductory?) press conference as the general manager and vice president of football operations of the Edmonton Elks on Wednesday, that perception might be about to change.
The 51-year-old, who was with the organization from 1999 to 2016 — eight years in the receiving corps and ten in personnel — wasted no time blasting the team’s previous management and openly threatened anyone with plans to resist the organization’s impending cultural reset.
“I do not like where the club sits in the CFL as far as the perception. I would equate it to a laughing stock and it is our responsibility to remove ourselves from that. I can assure you, I am going to work tirelessly to make that happen with the staff that I bring in, with the coaching staff that comes in, and the players that play here,” said Hervey.
“We’re not going to be a joke. We’re not going to be whatever was going on around here for the last (few years), we’re not going to be that. We’re not and I can assure you that anyone who attempts to try to make it that way, this isn’t the place for you. It’s that simple. I didn’t come here to lose, I didn’t come here to waste time.”
Edmonton fired head coach and GM Chris Jones in August following an 0-5 start to the season. The longtime CFL mercenary was hired in December 2021 under similar circumstances: the Elks were a bad football team and wanted someone from their past to help lead them into the future. After all, the native of South Pittsburg, Tenn. won a Grey Cup in Edmonton in 2015 as the team’s head coach.
The experiment was a disaster as Jones went 8-33 over parts of three seasons, which were chock-full of in-game mistakes, endless player transactions, and head-scratching personnel moves. A strong indictment of the Jones era came from receiver Kenny Lawler, who played one year in Edmonton in 2022 before returning to Winnipeg, where he openly warned free agents against signing with the Elks following what he clearly considered a bad experience.
Hervey is well aware of his new (and old) team’s poor reputation and vowed to mend it. He also warned players the standard will be higher come training camp in May.
“The Edmonton Elks are under new management, new business. I heard one of the star players in the league say, ‘Whatever you do, don’t go to Edmonton.’ To the players out there, the water is warm. Come on in, we’re going to change things around here and if you don’t fit in, there’s eight other teams,” said Hervey.
“For the players that are here, understand: be ready. Don’t come into (training) camp out of shape, don’t come into camp tired — be ready to go. I’ll have a chance to meet with you and talk with you individually. For the players that know me, tell the players that don’t what I’m about. They’ll like me, maybe.”
“I’m not going to lie to you, I’ll tell you where you are, what our evaluation is of you. You walk out pissy? OK, better work hard on the field when you practice as long as you put on our uniform. That’s it with me and if you still don’t like it and you want to go, just come in and tap on my door and say, ‘I want to leave.’ I’m gonna say, ‘Home or somewhere else?’ I’m gonna send you home because that’s gonna be the fastest way to get you out of here.”
“For the players that are listening, or that are going to read this, or going to watch it on Twitter, or whatever your choice of listening to this is, the message is clear: we’re not what we were yesterday.”
The Einsteinian definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Reaching into the past for Chris Jones was a colossal error by the Elks, so why should things be any different with Hervey? After all, he’s gone 21-33 over recent GM stints in B.C. and Hamilton. Those are objectively poor results.
According to Chris Morris, the team’s new president and CEO and a former teammate of Hervey’s in Edmonton, the difference is his new GM’s commitment to restoring a culture of character and community.
“There’s lots of teams all over the place that have lots of good players. Ed is talking about building a foundation of character, hard work, and commitment to each other that allows great players to win championships. That’s what he understands and it sounds harsh to everybody to hear, but the reality is, if you don’t have that — if you don’t have a foundation based on trust and respect and hard work and intent and a lack of comprehension of anything else existing in your world — you’re always going to be just OK,” said Morris.
“My comfort level with bringing Ed Hervey in here is that he understands that as clearly as I do. We articulate it a little bit differently, but you can’t build a championship team on a faulty foundation, and that’s what he’s talking about today, and that’s why I’m so comfortable with him.”
“We’re looking for people that want to come in and compete, people that want to come in and do things right — on and off the field. I could [sic] care less how great of a player you are if you’re not great off the field,” said Hervey. “Sometimes you have to take a step back to take two steps forward. If that means moving on from coaches, players, people who don’t fit into the culture, that’s the window of opportunity to make the moves necessary to get us to where we want to go.”
“We want our players here in the off-season. This used to be the place where players stayed, we spent our off-seasons here. Where is that? We need to get that back. There are things that we can do to get back to the old way as we move forward and as we move forward, we want our players to feel like we care about them. We want them to know that we care about them, but we have to first start showing that we care about each other.”
Morris cited the fact that Hervey makes his year-round home in Edmonton as a reason for his hiring. He also called him the most qualified and experienced person for the job, indicating that a “rigorous interview process” took place over the past few weeks.
Hervey claims he’s grown more mature and less egotistical since his first tenure in Edmonton, crediting Wally Buono, Rick LeLacheur, Scott Mitchell, and Orlondo Steinauer for his personal growth. He also revealed that he lost his mother this past year and vowed that she would remain proud of him as he carries on her legacy.
As far as hiring a new head coach is concerned, Hervey indicated he wants someone who is a “grownup,” competent, and organized — not someone who is a “temper tantrum-type.” He also declined to provide a timeline for the hiring, asking fans and members of the media to be patient with the process. It’s unclear why Hervey refused to give a timeline as Rick Campbell, the person he is almost certainly going to hire as head coach, is available after being fired by the B.C. Lions on Wednesday morning.
“The players are not going to go out there unsure of what they’re doing when they leave the meeting room and hit the practice field and go into games. I want to be certain that they’re prepared for the game. We’re not going to have these guys back there with their hands up trying to figure it out and pointing fingers and every week, there’s an excuse as to why we didn’t succeed and watching the prep going into the week, you can see the failures happening,” said Hervey.
“We’re not going to have that kind of staff. We’re going to hold ourselves accountable, the coaching staff is going to be held accountable. We’re going to get this thing right and we’re going to try our best to find the most experienced group of coaches — whether that’s internal or outside the building — to lead us and I won’t rest until I feel comfortable with the staff that’s here.”
Edmonton’s attendance has dropped 33.9 percent since Hervey was fired following the 2016 season, including a 21.8 percent drop since 2021. No longer feasible under community ownership, the Elks were sold to new owner Larry Thompson, a construction magnate and self-professed lifelong fan, in August.
Hervey knows fans are frustrated and disengaged. He made an open request that they trust him as he works to lead the team back to respectability.
“I know there’s people in this city that really care about this football team and are passionate about this organization. I know that. I live here, I hear it — trust me, I know. When I see empty seats, I see that more as a protest of, ‘Get it right, and we’ll be back,’ not, ‘Done forever.’ I believe that the stadium was full (for this year’s) Labour Day rematch or had a pretty good crowd. They’re out there. I just want to give them the hope and the belief that we’re going to do things the right way,” said Hervey.
“I want the fans who are hesitant to come back to the stadium to trust what they’re hearing, the fans who know me, who’ve been around me and heard me talk. I shoot from the hip, but I’m not going to lie to you, and my intent is to do what is necessary to get us not just making playoffs. This is the Edmonton Elks. We’re a championship organization. When I walked into the building, (we were) the flagship franchise (of the CFL). We have the ability to bring that back.”
Fans in Edmonton have been fooled before. For their sake, let’s hope they’re not being fooled again.
