Stusek has now been involved in Canadian football in pretty much every possible way.<\/a><\/p>\nAs a fan, he began attending Roughriders games at Taylor Field with his mother (Cheryl) and uncle (Ray Griffeth) in the 1970s.<\/p>\n
In the mid-1980s, Stusek was a star running back for the Regina Intercollegiate Football League\u2019s Usher Unicorns. The fuse being lit, he remained involved in the sport as a coach.<\/p>\n
In a volunteer capacity, he coached at the RIFL, Regina Minor Football, Football Saskatchewan, Team Canada and university levels.<\/p>\n
Most recently, he was the University of Regina Rams\u2019 Special Teams Co-ordinator and Assistant Head Coach.<\/p>\n
As well, he is a former President-Chair of RMF and President of the Prairie Football Conference\u2019s Regina Thunder.<\/p>\n
And we have yet to cite his past association with the Roughriders as a member of the Board of Directors (2010 to 2019) and a guest coach at Coors Light Training Camp (2024 and 2025).<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m starting a professional career in coaching at 56 years old,\u201d he marvelled. \u201cThe story is 100-per-cent upside down.<\/p>\n
\u201cI should have started like Josh Donnelly, worked my way up, had a business, and then come back and sort of done the governance side of it, versus the way I\u2019ve done it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not that he is lamenting the scenario.<\/p>\n
\u201cI genuinely think this is a grassroots story about local people having success, he said.<\/p>\n
Another example to that effect is Donnelly \u2014\u00a0a former Rams quarterback and Offensive Co-ordinator who, at 25, is entering his second season as the Roughriders\u2019 Offensive Assistant.<\/p>\n
Donnelly and Stusek are among three Rams alumni on Saskatchewan\u2019s coaching staff. Former Rams quarterback and assistant coach Marc Mueller is preparing for his third season as the CFL team\u2019s Offensive Co-ordinator.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t go into this thinking, \u2018I want to coach for the Riders one day,\u2019 \u201d Stusek said. \u201cI didn\u2019t even go into it thinking, \u2018I want to be paid to coach one day.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
Instead, he coached for free while earning a living elsewhere \u2014\u00a0at ISC and over the 13 previous years he spent with the City of Regina as the Director of Transit and in technology roles.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything was always kind of side by side,\u201d Stusek said. \u201cI lived two lives. They weren\u2019t entirely separate, but I lived two lives. I coached at the university level for the last nine seasons and I was a CEO for five or six of those.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe university season has long hours as well. So on a Monday, for example, at 6:30 in the morning I was at ISC being the CEO of a publicly traded company. I would hustle out of there at 4 or 4:15 in the afternoon to get to the Rams office. I\u2019d get home at 11 or 11:30.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen I\u2019d just repeat, day after day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now he would like to help the Roughriders repeat as Grey Cup winners.<\/p>\n
As it stands, he has already been associated with one CFL championship team \u2014\u00a0as a Board member in 2013.<\/p>\n
In the long history of the community-owned franchise, Stusek is only the second person to join the coaching staff after being involved at the Board level. The first was the legendary Al Ritchie, who in 1963 was one of the charter inductees into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow I go to the other end of the spectrum,\u201d Stusek noted. \u201cI\u2019m the low, low, low man on the totem pole of the entire organization \u2014\u00a0and that\u2019s really cool.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a passion around coaching. I\u2019ve always had it. I applied the coaching passion to business, with the kind of leadership style that\u2019s inclusive and growth-oriented and people-oriented.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose two things fit side by side. And when I was on the Rider board, I also got to mesh those two things together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Family is another key component of the equation.<\/p>\n
Stusek and his wife, Sheryl, have two sons. Carter, a former Thunder linebacker, has been on the Rams\u2019 coaching staff since 2022. Bennett is a former Rams receiver.<\/p>\n
\u201cSheryl retired in June,\u201d Stusek said. \u201cI was prepared to travel with her and everything, but she insisted that this opportunity was once in a lifetime and that I needed to try it.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is the glue in our family. When the boys were both playing, she just made sure that things were handled. She has always been supportive of my football journey and of my professional journey.\u201d<\/p>\n
That journey, as the principal assistant to Special Teams Co-ordinator Kent Maugeri, began on the first Monday of January.<\/p>\n
\u201cI walked in and I could barely start my computer,\u201d Stusek said with a laugh. \u201cI had to learn new software and I was thinking, \u2018This is super cool!\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI lose track of time because I\u2019m just involved and I can\u2019t get in early enough. I can\u2019t stay late enough because I just want to learn and take it all in.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy whole objective is, \u2018I\u2019m going to be a positive asset for this team when the players show up.\u2019 I\u2019m going to be well-positioned to know what they need to know and what I can give them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got a tough four months ahead of me (until training camp), but I\u2019ve already started and we\u2019re ready.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was a time, not too long ago, when Jeff Stusek was the highest-ranking employee at Information Services…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-411404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}