General manager Ed Hervey isn’t going to hide the Edmonton Elks’ report card at the bottom of his school bag after the organization was given a near-failing grade from players this week.
The 51-year-old personnel executive re-joined the Elks in November, inheriting a team that finished dead last in player satisfaction according to the Canadian Football League Players’ Association’s inaugural franchise report cards. Despite not being responsible for the results, Hervey is taking full responsibility for changing them.
“First of all, I won’t comment on what was going on. That would be immature of me, I guess, but what I will say is that Edmonton — the Elks, formerly the Eskimos — as fans know and have come to appreciate, there’s a standard that I understand. There’s a standard that we will live by here,” he said during an appearance on the Kevin Karius Show.
“The grades, I did have a chance to see them and I was highly disappointed and disheartened by that. But I also told our guys and the people in our building, ‘Smile today, because that means we can only go up from here.'”
The Elks received an aggregate grade of D+ across the eight different categories covered in the survey, ranking last in the CFL. They were also the only franchise to receive an F grade in any category, flunking both the diet & nutrition and training camp sections.
Players submitted their responses to the survey in October, with Edmonton results generally reflecting the way the franchise was run under fired head coach and general manager Chris Jones. Much has changed since then, with Larry Thompson taking over as the team’s first private owner and a new regime being established with president Chris Morris, Hervey, and new head coach Mark Kilam.
One Elks’ player quoted in the report card wrote optimistically that “a lot has been promised with the new ownership.” Hervey doubled down on those promises, speaking directly to both present and future players.
“I want to reassure the players that are out there listening, that may hear this clip, that we have much higher standards than Fs and Ds. We will live up to the standards that we know our organization has had in its glorious past, not in this year’s past,” he said. “We will make certain — I will personally make certain — that all areas of concern that our players have had are not only addressed but improved. I do want this to be a place where players who are here want to stay. I want this to be the place where free agents look and they want to come. I want people to understand that their families are welcome, that their families are going to be treated well.”
3DownNation reached out to all nine teams for comment following the release of the CFLPA report cards and did not receive any official response, with a representative of one team indicating they’d been told not to address the survey by the league. Hervey is the first team official to overtly address his team’s results, striking a tone consistent with the one he has embraced since returning to Edmonton.
In his re-introductory press conference last month, the man who constructed the Green and Gold’s last Grey Cup winning team spoke passionately about repairing an organizational culture eroded by years of losing and turnover. He openly threatened those within the building who might be unwilling to embrace change, while pitching the franchise’s new vision to prospective free agents.
“I get poked for saying this, but there’s many ways and then there’s the Eskimo way. Yes, we’ve changed and all this stuff, but I believe in that. I believe in doing right. I believe in treating the players right. I believe in being fair and firm, but I believe in being fair,” he echoed on Wednesday. “I also believe that the football experience is such a short experience for players. Whether you play for two years or 10 years, it is a short experience in our lives and with your families being a part of it, that’s important. It’s very important. Family is important to me, everyone knows the story with my mother. That’s non-negotiable for me, the treatment of families and things moving forward.”
Hervey credited interim president Rick LeLacheur for making some effort to improve the team’s treatment of players last season, but noted there were other priorities that took up much of the front office’s focus. Now that they have achieved stability, rebuilding trust with the men in the locker room will be a key part of finding success on the field.
“I just know that some things are harder to overcome when there’s a lot of other stuff going on, but our standards are much higher and we’ll do everything we can to meet our standards,” Hervey said. “I hope this time next year when those grades come out, our fans will have a chance to see what our players think of the changes and it will hopefully be reflected in their survey this time next year.”
