His employer has declared bankruptcy and June Jones is listed among the bigger creditors, but he doesn’t see his situation as negative.

“It works out well for me,” the popular former head coach of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats counters.

Jones, then the offensive co-ordinator, left Hamilton just before last spring’s training camp to become head coach and general manager of the Houston Roughnecks in the rebooted XFL, which began play in early February.

With his trademark run-and-gun offence, Jones led Houston to the league’s only undefeated record at the halfway point of the scheduled 10-game season, when the coronavirus pandemic forced suspension of play. The XFL, owned by uber-wealthy wrestling magnate Vince McMahon, later killed the season and on Monday filed for Chapter 11 protection from its creditors.

Those creditors include seven of the eight coaches, including Jones, who is listed as being owed $583,333.33, the 10th biggest creditor overall. Former Toronto coach, Marc Trestman of the Tampa Bay Vipers, is listed as the second-highest coaching and seventh-largest overall creditor.

“But the coaches were on two-year contracts and (the debt listed) is for the second year,” Jones told The Spectator. “I got paid in full to the end of our contract for this year and even got vacation pay. He paid his players. He’s a standup guy. The whole league was good for football.”

The Ticats originally hired the veteran NFL and NCAA coach as an adviser to Kent Austin in 2017, but after the team’s 0-8 start, he became head coach. After he promoted Jeremiah Masoli to starting quarterback and Brandon Banks to regular use as a receiver the Ticats finished the season with a 6-4 run. Banks and other top receivers were injured in 2018 but the 8-10 squad did make the East Final where they lost to Ottawa. Steinauer took over for the record-setting 2019 season.

The 68-year-old Jones says he’d coach again, “in the right spot. Financially, I don’t have to coach so I’m blessed in that way, that I can wait for the right situation.”

Jerry Glanville, the accomplished and colourful 78-year-old coach and raconteur who was Jones’ defensive co-ordinator here in 2018, was among the other employment victims of the XFL’s demise.

Glanville ran the Tampa Bay Vipers defence for head coach Marc Trestman, the former Toronto and Montreal coach, who is listed as the second-largest coaching creditor at $777,777.

The inaugural season was originally to end at the end of April, and Glanville says XFL co-ordinators and assistant coaches were being paid once per month. But he was informed by Fed Ex delivery Monday that his paydays are over now.

“I was on a two-year deal but it was written into our contract that if the league ever files bankruptcy, then everything is stopped,” Glanville said from his Tennessee home. “And they filed bankruptcy. My pay stopped and so did my hospitalization (coverage).”

Glanville says he wants to continue coaching, but hasn’t talked to anyone yet about a job. And he insists he’s not angry with the XFL.

“Well, when they terminate you, you don’t bang the drum but I’m not mad at the guy who got it going,” he says. “I’ve never been with a more first-class organization.”

He was head coach of the short-lived Hartford franchise that didn’t even finish its only season in the United Football League, the fall pro league which ran from 2009-12.

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“So I’ve closed two of these things now,” he laughs. “The Hartford Colonials still owe me a million-three ($1.3 million). Think I’m ever going to see that?

“But you can’t get me down, you can’t keep me suppressed. We list it all under the heading of ... ‘Life!’”