Elks assistant GM Simon dives into his role

The Edmonton Elks didn't do much more than spin their tires to another last-place finish in the Canadian Football League's West Division standings in 2022.

But when it comes to the club's inner workings, much more progress has been made over the past year.

Geroy Simon may have retired after a 15-year playing career as the league's all-time receivingyards leader, but he was a rookie on the general manager stage a season ago after being hired by the Elks to serve as assistant GM to Chris Jones.

“I told him, I said: `This could be a really good learning curve for you, because I'm going to turn you loose and let you spread your wings and kind of get used to doing things as a GM,'” Jones told Postmedia. “Because when you get up, it's comforting to me to know that he can handle it.

“Brett Munson, he worked with me in Calgary and now he's the D co-ordinator in Calgary, and I see his development over the years. I like seeing guys that have been with us and working alongside them, and then them getting to kind of do their own thing.

And that makes you feel good as a person knowing that you're developing these guys.”

Simon is no different, attacking the duties of making phone calls, negotiating with agents and drawing up contracts with the same gusto he once ran routes and caught balls like few others on the field. And even this early on in the process, he's proven adept enough that it takes tasks off the plate of Jones, who can then focus more on the job of making the rubber hit the road as head coach.

“Certainly, Geroy is very good at what he does,” Jones said with a chuckle. “And quite honestly, he gets to deal with the agents and gets to make the phone calls to the league that I don't have to make. There's a couple things I don't like doing: One of them is talking to the league and one of them is talking to agents, and he gets to do both of those.”

It probably shouldn't come as a surprise that Simon got a look during the hiring process, after the Elks' board of directors farmed out the duty of replacing their football-operations brass following a disappointing 2021 season.

After all, Wally Buono was brought in to oversee the process, and spent 2002-12 as either Simon's coach or general manager with the B.C. Lions. Of course, getting an interview is only half the battle. Simon had to do all the heavy lifting when it came to showing the Elks he was the right piece to fit next to Jones.

“The good thing for me is I've touched every part of the football organization and I have experience on every side of it,” said Simon, who hung up his cleats after spending one final season with the Saskatchewan Roughriders in 2013, before becoming an area scout for them the following year.

From there, he returned to the west coast for the next seven years to serve as everything from the Lions' player-business development adviser to director of scouting, to draft co-ordinator and U.S. regional scout, not to mention the ubiquitous tag of personnel assistant.

His current role pretty much combines all of that and more.

“I assisted in pretty much everything,” Simon said of his role with the Elks. “Basically running the football operations while Chris was coaching and doing his thing there. Contract negotiations, I handled the majority of that stuff. Dealing with the business side of things and not always report to Victor (Cui, Elks president), but I talk to Victor quite a bit during the season when Chris is coaching.

“So, I wear a number of different hats even though my title is what it is. But my experience in the football world is something that gives me the clout to be able to speak on different parts of the organization.”