Mark Kilam has more of a history here on the north side of the Battle of Alberta than you might realize.
A former team captain of the University of Alberta Golden Bears, where he played linebacker from 1997-2001, the 45-year-old native of Lethbridge is returning to the capital region to become the next head coach — and the first hired in the Larry Thompson era of private ownership — of the Edmonton Elks.
The official announcement is on its way Monday, but this move is one that’s been a long time coming for Kilam.
“There’s no doubt I want to be a head coach in this league but special teams guys, they’re not the sexy pick,” Kilam told the Edmonton Sun back in 2018. “But they’re the guys who coach the whole team, don’t just focus on one side. They’re going through all the situations.”
For the past 20 years, he has kept his nose to the grindstone with the rival Calgary Stampeders, working his way up from strength and conditioning coach and defensive assistant in 2005, rising through the ranks to special teams co-ordinator by 2010 before adding assistant head coach to his resume in 2019.
It came to an end Oct. 30 when Kilam found himself among three Stampeders coaches who weren’t going to be retained next season, after the Stampeders finished 5-12-1, missing the playoffs for the first time in 18 years.
But that likely has less to do with Kilam’s abilities than it does family ties, as the special-teams job will most likely go to Craig Dickenson, currently on staff as a senior consultant who happens to be the brother of Stampeders head coach and general manager Dave Dickenson.
But for a coach to reach well into three decades of earning a paycheque from the same professional sports organization, Kilam must have been doing something right.
He passed the mark as longest-serving coach in the CFL back in 2018, when the Stampeders last won the Grey Cup, 27-16, over the Ottawa Redblacks at Commonwealth Stadium — a place Kilam will be calling home for who knows how long?
The thing is, the Elks aren’t the first football team to consider promoting him to the head-coaching ranks. Heck, they aren’t even the first football team in Edmonton to offer him the job.
And the fact Chris Morris is the one doing the hiring as newly named Elks president makes this whole thing all the more intriguing.
Back in 2012, Morris accepted the position as head coach of a Golden Bears program that had just gone 0-8 and missed playoffs for the seventh time in 12 seasons — but not before the job had already been offered to another candidate.
Kilam, who to this day has a Golden Bears tattoo, was all set to return to his alma mater and begin taking his first steps as a head coach. But first, he had to walk into Jon Hufnagel’s office inside Stampeders HQ and let his head coach and general manager know he would be resigning.
But Huf — who was smack dab in the middle of a decade spent building his franchise into the class of the league with three Grey Cups — had other ideas.
Instead of being thanked for all his years of blood, sweat and tears, Kilam had a $25,000 raise slapped down in front of him, and was told he wasn’t going anywhere.
It’s nice to be wanted, isn’t it?
It’s a scoop that had ended up only appearing in this space, way back when. But there is more to the story that’s never been told. And it speaks to the very makeup of Mark Kilam as a man.
Upon being asked about the Golden Bears gig, Kilam’s first thought wasn’t about self back-patting or even shrugging it off. His primary concern was having a story get out that might make Morris, a respected three-time Grey Cup champion, look like the second choice.
And if there is one thing that hints toward the success and longevity Kilam has enjoyed throughout his career, that response could be the touchstone.
The fact he specializes in special teams is only a bonus for the Elks, whose return game might as well have been held together by duct tape and the shadow of Henry ‘Gizmo’ Williams since before Kilam’s career began.
He came up against plenty of candidates for the Elks’ job, including former B.C. Lions head coach Rick Campbell, Lions offensive co-ordinator — and native of St. Albert — Jordan Maksymic, Winnipeg Blue Bombers offensive co-ordinator Buck Pierce and Jarious Jackson, the Elks offensive co-ordinator who took over as interim head coach after Chris Jones was fired after starting out 0-5.
The bar that has been set for Kilam in Edmonton is low. Real low.
But that doesn’t mean the expectations being placed on him by the once-proud franchise aren’t through the roof.
He takes over as the 25th different head coach in club history with his last three predecessors going a grand total of 18-50 (.265) and barely getting a sniff of the playoffs, which Edmonton hasn’t earned since before undergoing the rebranding in 2020.
Growing up 200 km south of Calgary, the son of two doctors — dad Surender, a surgeon, and mom Jan, in sports medicine — switching sides in the CFL’s provincial rivalry will no doubt be a bit of an adjustment after spending so long on the other side of the fence.
And the gridiron won’t be the only arena presenting challenges for Kilam. It’s in the stands where he will also feel the pressure of shrinking attendance.
He won’t just be tasked with putting together a winning product, but one that is also exciting to watch and able to reclaim headlines in a historically hockey-mad market that, for a large part, has grown accustomed to ignoring the Elks — whether they’ve deserved it or not.
But if you’ve ever noticed a wild-haired, wide-eyed coach bouncing up and down Calgary’s sideline like an endless ball of grinning energy right from the opening kickoff, it won’t be for lack of effort that keeps his Elks down.
Kilam’s time has come. And he is finally rising to meet it. All the team needs to do is follow.
E-mail: [email protected]
On Twitter: @GerryModdejonge