Over the years, Toronto Argonauts director of player personnel Jim Barker has held several CFL roles; assistant coach, head coach, personnel advisor, and general manager, among others. But of all the things Barker has done over his career, perhaps the most rewarding role in his eyes is being a mentor.
From a player personnel department aspect his track record with understudies is solid. Chris Rossetti is the director of pro scouting for the New York Giants, Curtis Rukavina and Vince Magri are pro scouts with the Buffalo Bills, and Matt Yustin is working in the New York Jets personnel department. All four started their careers with the Argos under Barker’s tutelage.
Barker is now working with a new trio of proteges, helping the organization prepare for the CFL Draft, which takes place April 28.
Marcus Grandison expanded his portfolio a year ago, adding scouting assistant to his role in the football operations video department. He’s joined by newcomers Afram Jolak and Nate Bickford, both of whom have been busy since joining the team early in the off-season.
In the interim they’ve been thrown into the fire, attending live events, examining video of both pro and college players, and most recently repping the Double Blue at the CFL Combine in Edmonton, watching the drills and conducting interviews with players.
“They did a great job,” Barker told Argonauts.ca. “Two of them (Grandison and Bickford) were in the defensive interview room, Afram was in the offensive interview room.”
Grandison is the veteran of Barker’s staff. He’s in his fifth season in the video department, his second as a scouting assistant. He played at York University, the U-of-T, California’s Butte College, Team Canada, and spent a training camp with the Argos before coaching high school and at Simon Fraser University, where he also acted as a recruiter.
Last season was an eye opener, even for someone who has played, coached, and recruited.
“You don’t know what you don’t know,” Grandison told Argonauts.ca. “There’s so many prospects that you need to have good time management to get through everybody. That’s something I learned last year. There’s a lot to it and a lot to learn.”
“Last year was like drinking from a fire hose, but now I’ve seen the lay of the land and go through a full calendar year. It’s been a good process.”
One of the things the Toronto native has learned is how important the interview process is, the relatively small window the team has to meet with a prospect to see how they tick.
“We interview the guys, but they were also interviewing us,” he explained. “We have to show who we are as an organization. We can draft a guy, but we want to maintain him for four, five, six years as a good investment.”
This is an interesting draft class for Grandison, who established a connection with many of the players when he was recruiting for SFU. He knows many of their backgrounds, something that has helped the team prepare its player profiles.
He’s also prepared because in his role in the video department, he’s been preparing the cut ups for the other people in the organization to watch.
The club’s first-year pro and Canadian scouting assistant is Nate Bickford. An Arnprior native, Bickford found his way to Toronto via the BC Lions and the 2024 Grey Cup Festival Committee where he worked on the business side of football, then the Ottawa Redblacks, where last year he interned in the football operations department.
He was lucky. As opposed to teenagers and young adults who don’t know what they want to do with their life, Bickford knew exactly where he was heading, to a career in football.
“It’s my first love,” he told Argonauts.ca. “I’ve always like the ideas of the Jimmy and the Joes, giving the coaching staff the ideal set of players to go out and be successful. I’ve always just found that super interesting and have a burning passion for personnel.”
A mutual acquaintance connected Bickford with one specific Jimmy, Barker. The pair had a conversation on the phone and before you could say Jimmy or Joe, Bickford was on his way to join the Argos personnel department.
He credits Barker for a crash course in his chosen profession, saying of his mentor “He’ll teach you ten things without even realizing it.”
“I think the most important things he’s taught me are the intricacies of building a roster,” Bickford explained. “He’s really put everything in perspective for me.”
Bickford has studied the film of all the prospects, taking his findings back to Barker rest of the personnel department so they could discuss the report as a group.
Afram Jolak arrived from the CFL offices, where he had been working in the football operations department. It followed an injury-plagued career as a defensive lineman at the University of Guelph. It was there he discovered he wouldn’t be walking down his presumed career path of becoming a doctor; instead, he realized his true calling was in the sport that he loved; somewhat ironic because it was during the COVIC pandemic he realized becoming a physician wasn’t what he wanted to do.
“I had a bunch of time on my hands,” Jolak recalled for Argonauts.ca. “I couldn’t play but had a chance to explore what football looked like outside of being a player. When you grow up you know football as a player or as a coach, but when COVID hit, I had time to research. I watched Hard Knocks, I saw there were other things in football I didn’t know about, one being scouting.”
The more he studied, the more he liked the process and wanted to explore the possibilities of making it a career. Guelph’s athletic director then did something that changed Jolak’s life; he introduced him to Jim Barker.
“Jim was a straight shooter, he didn’t sugarcoat anything,” said Jolak. “Instead of telling me about the cool parts of the job he told me the harsh realities; the long nights, the stressful evenings trying to find players, making sure that we can build a team that wins and having that pressure to always have somebody ready to go. It’s a lot of sacrifices, not a lot of family time, a lot of travel. That was a wake-up call, it’s a lot different than they make it look in Hollywood and Hard Knocks.”
For a while he worked construction waiting for a break, which came with a job opening with the CFL, an entry level gig in the football operations department. Then came an opportunity that became a dream job for him, Argo GM Michael Clemons wanted to expand the player personnel department and Barker called Jolak to join the staff as the team’s pro scout coordinator, though the role is bigger than the title.
“I lean toward pro (players) first,” explained the Nepean native. “Jim is doing a phenomenal job of teaching, he knows our strengths and weaknesses, so he has us doing everything. I’m helping Jim, and Marcus, and Nate with the Canadian stuff, I’m helping Jim manage our cap, looking for free agent targets. He’s not afraid of giving these big tasks to young people because he trusts in himself and his ability to teach and to get us to a level where we’re comfortable.”
There’s still much work to be done, though the heaviest lifting has been completed. Barker will advise general manager Michael Clemons of his group’s findings, consult with head coach Mike Miller and his coaching staff on their needs and preferences, hold mock drafts, then compose a final ranking of players both overall and by position.
Their plan of attack goes into operation on April 28 when the CFL Draft will be held, another opportunity for Barker’s staff members to add to their rapidly increasing football I.Q.