CFL hires Jim Daley to evaluate officiating

Jim Daley is ready to start taking CFL officials to task from a completely different vantage point.

The longtime coach was hired as the CFL's senior adviser, officiating development and football operations on Tuesday, brought in to bring a fresh, on-field perspective to the league's front office.

Daley takes over primary responsibility for all procedures relating to the performance evaluation of game officials, and will now oversee people he once berated from the sidelines.

"There are a couple of officials who have earned my wrath and I hope they have short memories," he said on a conference call.

Daley comes into the job with a wealth of experience, having served as head coach of the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Winnipeg Blue Bombers as well as an assistant coach with the Calgary Stampeders and Ottawa Rough Riders.

Based in Calgary, he will also help with football operations and player-discipline decisions.

Daley doesn't plan to come in and make sweeping changes.

Rather, he wants to slowly get to know how things are done before chiming in.

"The first thing is to make the transition to learn how officials function in terms of evaluation," he said. "This role is going to focus on the evaluation process of supervisors and evaluators and the process might be evolved over time."

Daley brings objectivity

How he is accepted will be interesting to watch.

Teams and players might feel better knowing one of their own is now in a position of authority, but officials and supervisors could regard him as an outsider hired to tell them how to do their jobs.

"There's always the accusation that, when you only have guys who have been officials looking at, evaluating and training officials, that it becomes a very insular environment," CFL director of officiating George Black said.

"Jim's addition breaks that completely and allows us to have somebody supervise officials from an independent, objective viewpoint.… Just because we have always done it a certain way isn't a reason to keep going forward with it."

The CFL is without a commissioner since Tom Wright's contract expired last month and continues to look for his replacement.

As such, Daley will report directly to CFL chief operating officer Michael Copeland.

Black will continue in his role, focusing on administration, training, development and recruitment of officials.

A return to the game has Daley excited.

His last head coaching job was with Winnipeg, taking over as interim head coach during the 2004 season after Dave Ritchie was fired and posted a 5-6 record.

Daley was named full-time head coach prior to the 2005 campaign, but was fired at season's end after the Bombers went 5-13 to finish last in the West Division.

He took last year off, breaking that up by making some presentations at various CFL camps.

That helped lead to the new position.

"I needed to spend more time at home," Daley said. "I'm very happy to get back into it in a more active scale."

Daley's best season as a CFL head coach came with Saskatchewan in 1997.

He posted an 8-10 record and a third-place finish in the West followed by upset road playoff wins over the Stampeders and the Edmonton Eskimos and a Grey Cup berth.

The Toronto Argonauts ended Saskatchewan's amazing playoff run with a 47-23 victory in the Grey Cup.

Daley won a Grey Cup as an assistant coach with Calgary in 2001.