MONTREAL -- As part of National Coaches Week (Sept. 19-27), we are highlighting some of McGill University's varsity mentors, with feature profiles on football's Ronald Hilaire (Sept. 21), volleyball's Rachèle Béliveau (Sept. 23) and swimming's Peter Carpenter (Sept. 25).
 
Ron Hilaire is living a future never envisioned in the past. A coaching career was the furthest thing from his mind during his playing days. Like many athletes, he had once dreamed of playing professional football. Now on the precipice of his seventh season as a bench boss at McGill, the 149-year-old program has been sidelined by the coronavirus pandemic. It marks the third time in school history that varsity football would not be offered on campus. Previously the sport was halted during the First and Second World War.
 
"I never thought that I would coach," said the native of Laval, Que., who turns 36 in November. "The reality is when you play football, you always think that you are better than you actually are and that it's going to last forever. Ultimately it didn't work out in my case."
 
Hilaire had a promising start as a defensive lineman in high school with Collège Mont Saint Louis and then at CEGEP du Vieux-Montréal, where he won three Bol d'Or league championships. He played for Canada on the international stage three times and earned an NCAA scholarship to State University of New York at Buffalo, where he co-captained the Bulls to the Mid-American Conference championship in 2008. A fourth-round pick (27th overall) by the Calgary Stampeders in the 2008 Canadian Football League draft, Hilaire's promising playing career was cut short after suffering an injury.  
 
He began coaching in 2010 at the insistence of one of his friends. Gilles Lezi , a former NCAA star fullback at Northwestern University, who played in the CFL from 2004 to 2007, with Edmonton, Ottawa, Calgary and Winnipeg. Lezi, currently at École secondaire Dalbé-Viau, had been on the football staff at CEGEP Vieux-Montréal and reached out to Hilaire about an opening on the coaching staff.
 
"I told him that I wasn't really interested in coaching," Hilaire recalled. "But he suggested that I should try and see if I like it. He was right and I have been coaching ever since."
 
After only two years at the CEGEP level and a stint with Football Quebec, Hilaire made the jump to the university ranks, spending three years with the Montréal Carabins, before joining the McGill staff coaching staff as defensive coordinator in 2014. Only four games into that season, bench boss Clint Uttley stepped down and Hilaire was appointed co-head coach on an interim basis. He was formally named as McGill's 21st head coach the following year.

"It's the passion of being able to give back what so many other coaches have (instilled) in me," said Hilaire of what he enjoys about coaching. "The knowledge of the game is one thing but life lessons were really instrumental to me from coaches like Benoit Audet and Marc Santerre (when they were at Collège Vieux-Montreal), along with former Montreal Alouettes quarterback Turner Gill and ex-NFL coach Vantz Singletary (both of whom worked with Hilaire at SUNY-Buffalo). They taught me a lot about life and that's something that I try to do in my role at McGill."
 
Hilaire took over a McGill group that had failed to reach post-season play in seven of the previous eight seasons. Under his direction, the squad finally moved out of the doldrums, and has now qualified for post-season play in three of the last four years. Most recently, the team has posted back-to-back third-place finishes in the highly-competitive RSEQ conference, one which has produced a combined 14 national championship appearances -- and 10 Vanier Cup victories -- in the past 17 years by Laval or Montreal.
 
"Ultimately, our goal is to win games and give people a chance to win championships," offered Hilaire. "You're going to have to wake up early, be on time, learn teamwork and persevere when stuff doesn't go your way. You have to handle successes and losses. These are life lessons that you will also need (outside the athletic world). We want to instill that into our players. I'm fortunate enough to be making a living out of it and to be honest, I never feel like I'm going to work. It's amazing."
 
The aforementioned coaches have been instrumental in Hilaire's life and helped guide him from where he was going as a young adult. They've all had their share in molding him as a person, a player and a coach.
 
Hilaire says that he's taken tidbits from learning experiences with numerous coaches. One of those that he's admired in the pros is Tony Dungy, who served 13 years as head coach in the NFL, with Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Indianapolis Colts.
 
"His approach of seeing a football team as a family is something that I've found really interesting," Hilaire noted. "He is somebody that I like to model myself after… He's always been the ultimate family guy and his players believe in him. Having seen it first hand myself (in the CFL), its not easy to build that family bond and culture and the kind of teaching done within an organization. Dungy has shown that even at the highest level, it's not only about the love of the game, that you can still create a family bond within the team."
 
Hilaire, who heads a 10-man coaching staff at McGill, is a workaholic estimated to dedicate upwards of 80 hours per week to football during the fall semester.
 
"I'm a very competitive person and when you want to win badly enough, you look for every inch to gain an edge on something that will help for the game the following Saturday. It doesn't feel like a job so you don't really count your hours because you're so happy to be doing it. Also when you become head coach, you have more than Xs and Os to worry about. You have manage a large coaching and support staff and there is a lot of administrative work that has to get done.
 
"Development of alumni relations is also important to foster and maintain. They are the lifeblood of the program and you need to have them involved and we're fortunate to have some very devoted and passionate alumni at McGill. You also have to make sure to be on top of how our student-athletes are doing academically. That the first mission of being a student-athlete at McGill. They have to doing well on the academic front so that they can perform at their best on the athletic front."
 
During the season, having time for family and friends is extremely challenging but they kind of understand the situation, notes Hilaire, who has two young sons, Benjamin, 5, and Nathanael, 11.
 
"My two kids are just as much as part of my team and are intertwined with them. It's a matter of finding a way to maintain an equilibrium between my personal family and my football family. You're real friends will understand, whether you see them once or 50 times per year, it shouldn't make a difference."
 
Recruiting and finding the right type of athlete that fits the program is another area that is critical to success.
 
"It's a great opportunity that we have at McGill. We get extremely smart, career-driven and ambitious young men. And that helps us to coach them. They are so driven... they want to be No.1 in everything that they do. And if you find the right way to channel that same energy that they put into academics and convert that through athletics, the sky is the limit.
 
"Our job as coaches is to make sure that everybody is on the same page and rowing in the same direction. Our objective is to win the Vanier Cup national championship but to get to that point, we have to have small incremental goals. If you have the trust of your players and they appreciate and know that you are fighting every step of the way for them, they're going to run through a wall for you."
 
A big part of the student experience on campus is their classmates and social life. But for a student-athlete, a large part of their world revolves around their sport and their teammates.
 
"When the news about the season being canceled came out, the team was disappointed but we understand that health issues are the priority. Not having that part stings a little bit. But like I told the team, through life they're going to face a lot of challenges and you can't always control them. All that you can control is how you're going to react to the challenges and bounce back from them. We have a 48-hour rule, to digest the news and then move on to what's next, which is preparation for the 2021 season.  Now we are in the process of coaching meetings to discuss the next steps and fitness programs to offer this fall. We want to get our athletes back on the field and return to some kind of routine to keep our group engaged and ready for next year.
 
"We've made so many strides and have become competitive on the athletic front. That's a testament to the players that have chosen to play here and to our staff for preparing them. The future is bright for us and I can't wait to get started."


SOURCE:
Earl Zukerman
Communications Officer
Athletics & Recreation
McGill University
514-398-7012 (off)
www.mcgillathletics.ca
earl.zukerman@mcgill.ca