Interesting article about Marcel Bellefeuille's Wife

[blitzmore]

‘It takes really special women’ to be coach’s wife

Scott Radley

Aug 22, 2013

 

They were checking into the hotel when her husband's phone rang. It had already been a long day driving to Tennessee for a family event and they were tired and hungry. But he took the call anyway. It was the Winnipeg Blue Bombers calling to offer him a job.

She didn't know who was on the other end, but she immediately knew what was going on. And when he wandered back a few minutes later and saw his face, she really knew.

"We're going to have to talk," Julie Bellefeuille laughs as she tries to imitate the way her husband Marcel said it. "I said, 'Oh no, it's The Talk. I don't want to have The Talk.'"

To those in the pro football wives club, The Talk means change is coming. Not just for the coach. For them and for the kids.

It's the hardest part of the unseen side of lives spent supporting men whose jobs bring long days, late nights, countless meetings, constant travel, hirings, firings, job searches, fame, infamy, pressure, stress, fan interaction, enormous elation and deep disappointment.

This story is about Julie, whose husband returns to coach against his old club on Saturday in Guelph. But change the details a bit and it's about every football wife toiling in the background. Because every coach who's asked his players to sacrifice something has already asked his family to do the same.

"It takes really special women to be able to do this," she says.

Julie was the co-ordinator of two long-term care facilities in Hull when she met Marcel at a restaurant back in 2000. He simply introduced himself as being "in athletics." She didn't know that meant he was the head coach of the University of Ottawa GeeGees.

So she wasn't a football fan?

"Nope," she smiles.

Did she watch football at all?

"Nope."

She's laughing again. She thought football was the most awful sport ever. Just a bunch of guys running into each other, falling over and then starting again. Ballet was more her thing.

It was a couple weeks before she learned who he was. She saw his picture in the paper. They'd already hit it off by this point, though. Meaning even though she didn't know it then, her life was about to change in a big, big way.

The Ottawa team's budget was small. Things were tight. She'd cook huge pans of food for the players. She'd hem their torn jerseys and take their stuff home to wash it. You don't even want to know what the car smelled like most days.

"It was awful," she says.

But by doing it, she got to know the young men. And when she connected, she felt a desire to start watching the games to see how they'd do. She still had no idea what was happening on the field, but she was slowly grasping the culture.

Quickly she became Marcel's unofficial personal assistant. When the GeeGees qualified for the Vanier Cup in Toronto, he sent her ahead to organize rooms and meals. When they won, she was given an even bigger responsibility.

"I can't remember why I ended up with the Vanier Cup in my car, but I did," she laughs.

As the players made it back to Ottawa in their buses and prepared to meet the media, her job was to bring the trophy to the photo-op. Except she was exhausted and missed the exit, holding everyone up for nearly an hour.

A week after Marcel proposed — on Valentine's Day, as it turns out, proving coaches really are softies at heart — he was off to Saskatchewan to start his new job with the Roughriders. That left his fiancée to plan a wedding, organize a move, and leave her job. That May, he was home for just a couple days to get married before heading back to work.

Though Julie was somewhat familiar with the coaching life, as the niece of late NHL coaching legend Pat Burns, she says she still didn't quite get what was going to be required of her until she and her two daughters — who spoke no English — flew west to join him. She's not laughing now. It wasn't easy. It was a long way from home. Things were unfamiliar. They knew nobody.

And fans didn't hesitate to offer their opinions. Julie remembers calling Marcel to let him know a truckload of manure had been dumped on kicker Paul McCallum's front yard after he missed a field goal in the playoffs.

"When things go good, it's great," she says. "If you dare lose a game, it's horrible."

After five years in green, Marcel accepted a lesser coaching role in Montreal. He had other job offers, but wanted to get closer to home so Julie could be with her mother who was battling cancer. It meant packing up and moving the family again, now with two young sons.

Two years later when he was hired by Hamilton, they bought a house in Ottawa and a small place in Hamilton. He came here. She moved there, home-schooled her two young sons, and commuted to every home game. When Marcel's contract was extended, they found a place in Ancaster and moved again.

Each time she moved to a new province she had to get a new driver's licence, a new health card, register the kids for a new school, find a new home, and get to know new friends.

As a head coach's wife, her role changed, too. She helped create a game-day babysitting service for players' and coaches' young kids. She started a team wives Bible study and activity days. She helped put together welcome packages for incoming wives. She drove new wives around the city to help them find homes.

One night when Marcel was watching the NFL Network on TV, he saw something in a dressing room he really liked and mentioned it to her. For the next few days, Julie and a couple other people were at Ivor Wynne hand-painting all the stalls to match what he'd seen.

On top of everything, she was a buffer between the head coach and the players. Guys might be upset with her husband because of some decision he'd made, but they always had time for a chat with Mrs. B. She helped smooth things over at times.

Trouble is, when her husband was fired, she was by extension let go, too.

"Yeah," she says, almost sighing. "Yeah."

Julie says Marcel had five job offers the day he was let go. Three were in Canadian university ball and two were in the CFL. But he had some other things he wanted to do first.

He wanted to get some American football experience, so he signed on to help coach the Omaha Knighthawks of the United Football League. It meant a lot of time away from home. The day she flew down to see her first game was the day the league folded.

He also went to a bunch of NFL camps on his own dime to talk to coaches to better learn the four-down game. Which meant more time away.

"He also has NFL aspirations," she says.

But not taking a job right away let him write a book and be home for longer than he had been in years. Many days, you could see him jogging along Golf Links Road, just enjoying a normal home life. Seeing his sons. Seeing his wife. Enjoying stability.

But Julie knows she married a coach. She knows what that means. She knows that eventually the phone is going to ring when you're in a hotel lobby in Tennessee and a team is going to want to hire your husband as a consultant. Then a week later, promote him to offensive co-ordinator.

That night, they drove home, packed him and drove him to the airport for a 7:45 a.m. flight to Manitoba. She hasn't seen him since.

She has no idea where it'll all lead in the future? A long-term deal with the Bombers and a move to Winnipeg? A return to Ottawa? A gig somewhere else in the CFL? She has no idea. She's learned not to bother guessing.

She just knows she'll be along for the ride, like all the other women with husbands in a game that's so often nomadic. Meaning she'll eventually have to start packing all over again.

Again, she laughs.

"I've already started."

[iso_55]

Yeah, the families of the coaches have to sacrifice. No doubt about that. Usually a move every couple of years, I bet.

[NotoriousBIG]

Hardest move is the first one. After your third or fourth it's just what you do.