Hard work and sacrifice have led a Brock University student to a full-time coaching position with a Canadian Football League team.

Last month, at just 20 years old, third-year Sport Management student Alex Penz was named Assistant Video Co-ordinator and Special Teams Assistant for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

It’s a role he’s been dreaming of since starting at Brock in 2021.

His journey as a football player ended abruptly in 2020 when his Grade 12 season was cancelled because of the pandemic. While some of his teammates chose to stay in high school an extra year or play in summer leagues to make up for the lost training, Penz started down a new path with Brock’s Sport Management program to pursue a career in the sport industry.

Despite this new focus, Penz’s love of football remained and he wanted to be involved with the sport. Within the first few days of being at Brock, Penz reached out to several local high schools to ask if he could join their coaching staff. Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School took him up on his offer.

“It was my first shot at coaching and that’s where I developed my initial love for it,” he said.

The experience was the first of many steps Penz took to build relationships and gain the coaching experience he would need to get his foot in the door with the Tiger-Cats.

Penz also reached out to Associate Professor of Sport Management Kirsty Spence for career advice. Spence introduced him to Assistant Professor of Sport Management Ryan Clutterbuck, who teaches and conducts research in sport leadership and coach education and has coached national-level football teams.

Clutterbuck has been working to grow women’s football in Ontario since 2016. He shared with Penz his vision of creating a women’s flag football team at Brock that would compete within the Ontario Women’s Intercollegiate Football Association (OWIFA).

Penz took on the role of Head Coach and under his leadership the team finished in fourth place at the OWIFA provincial championships held at Tim Horton’s Field in April 2023. Building on their early and surprising success, the following season the team made it to the championship game, finishing in second place in the provincial championships this past November.

During Penz’s first year coaching the Brock women’s football team, he was hired by the Tiger-Cats to be an Assistant Video Co-ordinator to help film games and practices.

“A lot of people outside of sport don’t realize how crucial video is to teams, especially in football where only 18 to 20 games a year are played,” said Penz. “The team only practices two and a half hours a day at the most. Studying the video, breaking down the plays and using the footage to help with game planning takes up a lot of the preparation time.”

Penz said the role allowed him to work closely with Tiger-Cats coaches and players and opened his eyes to the demands of working in professional sport.

“No one in sports works 40 hours a week,” said Penz. “Last summer, I didn’t see my girlfriend for four months. I spent a ton of money on gas travelling to and from work and school and slept for four to five hours a day over the course of the season. If you want to do better than most people, you have to be willing to do stuff that most aren’t willing to do.”

After his one-year contract was up, Penz was offered another contract, this time as an official member of the coaching staff under new Head Coach Scott Milanovich. Now, as the Tiger-Cats Assistant Video Co-ordinator and Special Teams Assistant, Penz continues to take on much of the video responsibilities he had in his previous role while also working with Special Teams Co-ordinator Paul Boudreau.

“The day the Ti-Cats hired me, I told them I intended to one day be a coach on the team,” said Penz. “I was given opportunities beyond my role that allowed me to demonstrate my work ethic and abilities. Enough people believed in me to offer me a role with the coaching staff.”

Penz plans to continue taking courses for his Sport Management degree while also pursuing his full-time coaching role with the Tiger-Cats. If all goes well, he will graduate in June 2025.

“As a coach, I focus so much on the playing side of the game, but my degree taught me how each component of the sport industry works together — finance, people management, advertising, fan culture and more,” he said. “It helped set me up for a promising career.”