WIFL Also Left Matthews Hanging

Don Matthews knows who Ollie North is, which puts him ahead of Joe Gibbs, the coach of the Super Bowl champion Washington Redskins.

The notoriously myopic Gibbs had to be told who North was last season. Don Matthews sees past his nose.

Until the World Indoor Football League’s financial problems put his latest job on hold for at least a year, Matthews often answered his own phone at the San Diego Thunder’s Sports Arena office. He would even spend time with his family at the end of the day. That also put him ahead of Gibbs.

The Thunder’s first game was scheduled for June 20 in St. Louis against a team called the Lightning.

That’s right. The Thunder vs. the Lightning.

Instead, the WIFL has rained on Matthews’ parade.

“An amazing occurrence,” is the phrase Matthews used Tuesday to describe the WIFL’s postponement, which was announced June 9. “I was really disappointed. I was having a lot of fun. We felt good about what we had done with the Thunder in a short period of time.”

In case you aren’t a sports junkie, don’t get cable television and still think football is an outdoor sport played in the fall, outlined under gray November skies, you probably don’t know that the WIFL was supposed to be to the Arena Football League what the USFL was to the NFL.

And in case you don’t know the difference between a Stampeder and a Blue Bomber, you probably don’t know that Matthews was the head coach of the Canadian Football League’s British Columbia Lions last year until General Manager Joe Galat fired him just hours before the team’s 15th game.

The Lions had lost three in a row. Their quarterback, Roy Dewalt, had been hurt. Their attendance had been sagging. Their fiscal outlook was hip deep in red ink. And Galat had come to British Columbia after Matthews.

“Joe Galat figured this was his opportunity,” Matthews says. “After five years of me winning 70% of our games, he fired me for losing three in a row. It was a very unpopular move with the fans.”

Not to mention with Matthews.

So Matthews, who compiled a 52-20-1 record (including one Grey Cup league championship) in his five years in British Columbia, asked his wife where she would like to live until he found another job in coaching. She said San Diego. They rented a house in Del Mar and, surprise, fell in love with the area.

Matthews and Thunder General Manager Johnny Sanders reached a handshake agreement, and suddenly the former Idaho guard and linebacker, who first made his reputation as Edmonton Coach Hugh Campbell’s defensive coordinator in the late ‘70s, was quick-studying the quirky indoor version of football, a game played on an extra-large field in Canada.

Matthews, 48, is a short, barrel-chested former high school coach who has been teaching football half his life. He has bright eyes and a husky voice. It’s hard to imagine him leaving Vancouver, the Lions’ home city, without fully explaining his version of the firing. But many people there are still waiting to hear from him what happened.

“He (Galat) wanted a guy who would take orders,” Matthews says.

The Lions’ own financial problems have delayed paychecks that the team still owes Matthews. So Matthews is looking for work. He has met Al Saunders and Steve Ortmayer, the Chargers’ head coach and director of football operations. But he says there is nothing available with that team at the moment.

“I’m not sure what I’m going to do,” he says. “But I’d be very interested in anything in the NFL.”