Demers admits he is, Illiterate Options

[Canuck]

Canadian Press

11/2/2005 7:41:50 PM

MONTREAL (CP) - Jacques Demers, a coach and later a general manager in the National Hockey League for 15 years, admits he is illiterate.

That and other revelations about the life of one of the NHL's more colourful coaches is revealed in a biography in French released Wednesday called 'Jacques Demers En Toutes Lettres', which roughly translates as 'Jacques Demers From A To Z'.

The book was written by Journal de Montreal desk editor and former Montreal Canadiens beat writer Mario Leclerc. It contains 26 chapters, one for each letter of the alphabet.

Demers said at a gala book launch at a Bell Centre restaurant that his inability to read and write resulted from an impoverished childhood. His father beat and psychologically abused Demers and his mother.
He spoke about treating children with compassion.


''All I wanted from my father was to treat me with love,'' Demers said. ''Not to beat me up when I did something wrong. Not to beat up my mom. It really hurt me because he took away my childhood.

''The other thing I wanted to say was that if I could not write or read, it was because I had so much of a problem with anxiety because of the things going on in the family. I couldn't go to sleep at night. I'd go to school and I couldn't learn anything.

''So the message is, leave the kids alone. Don't beat them up. They're defenceless. Don't beat up their mom in front of the kids. He was an alcoholic, but he also wasn't a very good person to do that.''

It is remarkable that Demers was able to coach the Quebec Nordiques, the St. Louis Blues, the Detroit Red Wings, the Montreal Canadiens and the Tampa Bay Lightning, where he was also general manager in the late 1990s, without being able to read or write.

Only a few people knew of his problem. He finessed his way through most of it, he says in the book, by asking secretaries and media relations people to write letters for him, saying his English wasn't good enough.

Even his wife Debbie didn't know until, after haranguing him for days over not writing cheques for the household bills, he broke down and told her his deepest secret.

As general manager, he brought in Cliff Fletcher and Jay Feaster as assistants to handle contracts he couldn't read.

''I never really was a GM,'' he said. ''I hired Cliff Fletcher and Jay Feaster because I knew I couldn't do that.

''I could read a little bit but I can't write very well. I took to protecting myself. You put a wall around yourself. And when I was given the possibility of talking, I could speak well and I think that really saved me.''

The book takes readers from his rough childhood in the Cotes-des-Neiges neighbourhood near downtown Montreal to his rise up the coaching ranks to his current job as hockey analyst at the French-Language RDS network, where he has worked for four years.

He coached very good Detroit teams that reached the conference finals twice in the 1980s and his crowning achievement was taking the Canadiens to their 24th Stanley Cup at the old Montreal Forum in 1993.

One of his players on that team, Benoit Brunet, said he never guessed Demers was illiterate.

''That was a big surprise,'' said Brunet. ''I've worked with him at RDS and we had a lot of preparation to do before games and I never noticed a thing.

''But when a guy comes out in a book and says that, he's putting his head on the block. That's why he always had the respect of the players. It's incredible that he went so far without knowing about reading and writing.''

Leclerc said Demers told him about his illiteracy while on a trip to watch the Canadiens' AHL affiliate during the 1994-95 NHL lockout. When publisher Stanke approached Demers about doing a book, he turned to Leclerc to write it.

''I didn't want to do a first-person book and just talk about the Stanley Cup,'' said Leclerc. ''Unless he wanted to do a book about his life and all the problems he faced, I wasn't interested.

''I wanted to portray the soul of the man. He agreed. He said no restrictions. I spoke to 38 people to get their vision of Jacques.''

The publishers are currently studying whether to do an English translation, Leclerc added.

Demers is one of the most popular sports figures in Quebec and more than 200 people turned out for the book launch, including many Canadiens players and personnel from his time as coach.

In the book, he talks about looking after his siblings and how in his first year as coach in St. Louis he was so strapped for cash his wife had to take a job at a dry cleaners and they had to stay in Doug Gilmour's apartment for a summer.

It also talks of how he had to deal with six Red Wings who went on a drinking binge the night before the decisive game of a playoff series and of his controversial parting with the Canadiens.

When asked why he elected to make his troubles public, Demers said ''because I'm free now. I'm liberated.

''I have no problem saying what I wanted to say. That's what I needed. I've been carrying this all my life. I succeeded, and I'm telling people `you're capable of doing something in your life even if you have some big handicaps

I always wondered why he never returned to coach, now I know.

[TheSchmooze]

''The other thing I wanted to say was that if I could not write or read, it was because I had so much of a problem with anxiety because of the things going on in the family. I couldn't go to sleep at night. I'd go to school and I couldn't learn anything.

''So the message is, leave the kids alone. Don't beat them up. They're defenceless."

[nyrage]

Big deal, Sather is brainless.

[sbartlett7]

Big deal, Sather is brainless.

[EM31]

Perhaps he needed to go to the...

"...Derek Zoolander Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good and For Other Good Things Too."

[sbartlett7]

Perhaps he needed to go to the...

"...Derek Zoolander Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good and For Other Good Things Too."

You're a philosophizer.