Argos bring back Jim Barker as Director, Player Personnel

TORONTO — The Toronto Argonauts Football Club announced on Monday the hiring of Jim Barker as Director, Player Personnel.

Barker is back in Toronto for his fourth stint with the Double Blue, bringing over 40 years of football experience to the club. The Pasadena, California native most recently spent 2022 with the team as Senior Advisor and helped the club win their 19th Grey Cup.

He would serve as a CFL analyst on TSN from 2023 to 2025, a place he was familiar with, having spent 2021 as part of TSN’s coverage of the CFL. Before that, Barker worked two years with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, where he began as an offensive assistant before being elevated to offensive/special teams assistant and personnel consultant in 2020.

“Coming back to the Argos feels like coming home, ” said Barker. “This organization means a great deal to me, and I’m excited for the opportunity to help guide it forward. We have the pieces to accomplish something special, and I’m eager to get to work.”

Barker had tremendous success when he donned Double Blue from 2010-2016. The Argos made Barker their head coach on February 9, 2010, and he wasted no time turning a 3-15 team in 2009 into a 9-9 team that played its way into the Eastern Final and helped Barker take home CFL’s Coach of the Year honours. The next season, Toronto would name Barker their general manager, a position he would occupy until 2016, and in those six years, the GM would bring in 2012 Coach of the Year Scott Milanovich, trade for superstar quarterback Ricky Ray, and guide the Boatmen to a historic win in the 100th Grey Cup in 2012 on home soil. His first stint with the 19-time Grey Cup champions came in 1997 when he was the co-offensive coordinator for one of the greatest offences in CFL history, a season he would capture his first Grey Cup championship. He would be named head coach two seasons later in 1999, making him the youngest head coach in the CFL at 34 that year.

Before coming to Toronto in 2010, Barker excelled as an executive with the Calgary Stampeders from 2005-2009 under various capacities, including general manager, senior vice president of football operations, and director of personnel. Once again, he catapulted a team with only four wins in 2004 to a second-place finish and 11 wins in 2005. After joining forces with John Hufnagel, who was hired in 2007, Calgary would win the Grey Cup in 2008, and the Stamps would make the postseason five consecutive seasons while Barker was an executive. Barker’s first introduction to Calgary came in 2003 when the team hired him as their head coach.

Barker began his CFL coaching career as an assistant in 1996 with Montreal, a year the Alouettes would go on to set a then-team record with 12 wins. He would return to Montreal in 2002 as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, helping lead Anthony Calvillo and the Als to their first Grey Cup win in over 20 years. His introduction into coaching football started in the U.S. college ranks from the late 1970’s to the mid 1990’s with San Francisco State, Occidental, New Mexico State, Nevada, and Pomona-Pitzer. He has coached at every level of the NCAA, a feat not accomplished by many. The USC graduate has led his teams to three professional championships as a coach: two Grey Cup wins in 1997 and 2002 and an XFL championship in 2001 as the offensive coordinator of the Los Angeles Extreme, and has been instrumental as an executive in three other Grey Cup triumphs in 2008, 2012, and 2022.

Argos bring back Jim Barker as Director, Player Personnel

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