Darrell Davis
Regina Leader-Post
Alex Smith miraculously worked with seven head coaches during 16 adventurous seasons as a Saskatchewan Roughriders assistant coach. How did he survive all those transitions in such a risky, short-term profession?
“Just lucky, I guess,” said Smith, before joyfully recalling the unprecedented path that began with being hired by head coach Jim Daley in 1997, through becoming great friends with Cal Murphy and staying on-staff with Danny Barrett, Kent Austin, Ken Miller, Greg Marshall and Miller again — after Marshall got fired — until Corey Chamblin unceremoniously dumped him following the 2012 CFL season.
“I don’t really know what happened (with Chamblin). Richie Hall and Gary Etcheverry, the defensive co-ordinators I worked with, would get together and we’d draw up our plans for the next game. When Corey was there we did that for the first two or three games. After that Richie met Corey in his office and they told us what we were going to do.
“Corey took over running the defence. At the end of the year when I met with him, he said, ‘You didn’t have any new ideas.’ I said, ‘We never met!’ He said, ‘Never mind. You’re not gonna be here next year. Leave my office.’ Wow! OK.”
Chamblin tinkered incessantly with his coaching staff, but his team won everything in 2013 before he was fired in 2015, depriving Smith of a fifth Grey Cup appearance and second CFL championship after being part of the 2007 squad.
For his accomplishments while serving the longest stint of any coach in the history of the 115-year-old Roughriders, Smith is being inducted into the Plaza of Honour this weekend alongside former offensive lineman Chris Best and late running back Steve Molnar. They will be feted during halftime of Saturday’s game at Mosaic Stadium against the Montreal Alouettes.
“I’m not sure I deserve it,” said Smith, who was primarily a linebackers coach but also handled running backs, co-ordinated special teams and helped the organization prepare for the annual college draft in the days before video, statistics or even eligibility were easily accessible.
“I also appreciate that they’re recognizing a hometown boy who ended up coaching the hometown team, OK, and this lasts for 16 years. So I must have had some ability to do that. It’s a privilege.”
While growing up in Regina on the 1400 block of Rae Street, “about four or five blocks” from the Roughriders’ old Taylor Field home, Smith played football at Scott Collegiate and later for the junior Rams before a kidney injury ended his playing career.
He earned degrees in education and arts from the University of Regina while teaching “in a one-room country school house about 20 miles outside Regina” and coaching football at Scott alongside Bill Baker, another Ram who eventually became a Hall of Fame defensive end and general manager of the Roughriders.
When Smith was transferred to Balfour Collegiate and subsequently Thom Collegiate, he also helped coach the football teams. He replaced Lorne Shmyr as Thom’s head coach in 1976, winning numerous city and provincial championships before moving to Johnson Collegiate as an assistant to Ron Cherkas.
“I left Thom in 1990 because I was bored stupid,” said Smith. “There was no more for me to do and I needed a change of scenery. Ron was the head coach, he ran the defence, so I asked if I could run the offence. He said, ‘Fine.’
“That winter Frank (McCrystal, longtime Rams coach and a 2025 Canadian Football Hall of Fame inductee) asked me to join the Rams. I asked him, ‘You know, I wanna do this forever. Why didn’t you ask me before?’ He said I had such a great program at Thom he didn’t wanna yank me out and wreck that program. I told him I would do whatever.”
More championships ensued with the Rams until Daley, a first-time CFL head coach with lots of university experience, knocked on Smith’s door with an offer to work in Canada’s top league for coaches.
Smith can’t completely shake coaching. After leaving the Roughriders he spent time with the junior Regina Thunder and with the Campbell Tartans of the Regina Intercollegiate Football League, before ending that volunteer gig in 2023.
And he shows up regularly at Roughriders practices inside Mosaic Stadium, doing what he’s done seemingly forever — watching drills and seeing what he can use when teaching his players. What does he notice about this year’s Roughriders, who sport a CFL-best 10-2 record under head coach Corey Mace?
“They play with a great deal of enthusiasm,” said Smith. “I think they really like each other and hence they probably really like their coaches. They look like they’re having fun. And that’s important.”
