Pinball Clemons - Coaching Career

Coaching Career

Clemons became head coach of the Toronto Argonauts upon ending his playing career on September 15 of the 2000 CFL season replacing John Huard who resigned as head coach of the team after compiling a 1–6–1 record. When offered the head coaching job by team general manager J. I. Albrecht, he was reluctant to accept it, wanting to spend more time with his family. According to Clemons, "it was an awkward situation. After saying no, they said do us the favour of going home and discussing it with your family. The burden was that this team, this organization, had given our family so much that Canada was going to be our home. The Argos had everything to do with my family becoming a part of this country. Because of all I had been given I decided it was my time to reciprocate." After his playing in his last game, Clemons coached the Argos to 6 wins out of their remaining 8 games. In November, 2001, he was promoted to President of the Argonauts and relinquished his role as head coach in the process to Gary Etcheverry.

When Etcheverry was fired as head coach on September 17, 2002, Clemons returned as head coach on an interim basis for the remainder of the 2002 CFL season. Clemons was officially given the head coaching job again on December 17, 2002, while also relinquishing his role as team president. Clemons has been nominated for the Annis Stukus Trophy (awarded to the CFL's coach of the year) for six straight years (between 2002 and the 2007 CFL season) and has come up short each time.

Clemons also became the first black head coach to appear in a Grey Cup game in 2004 CFL season and would go on to be the first black head coach to win a Grey Cup championship during that same Grey Cup game, while also being the second ever to have guided his team to a pro-football championship in North America. (Darren Arbet of the San Jose SaberCats was the first to do so in 2002 with an ArenaBowl XVI victory.) After accomplishing this, Clemons downplayed the milestone achievement. "To tell you the truth, I don't know what it means to the first Black coach in the (Grey) Cup and to win it. I know that I can't do anything by myself, and on my own strength I'm very little good. Anything I accomplish has to be with the aid of individuals, and this team became like a family and is a family, it had very little to do with the colour of my skin".

Clemons has the second most head coaching wins in Argonauts history with 68. Bob O'Billovich is first with 89. Clemons' record is 68–55–1 in the regular season, and a 6–5 playoff record (including 1–0 in Grey Cup games). As a coach, his nickname was often shortened to "Pinner" by his players.