VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- With Don Matthews, what you get is an attitude.
It is a self-assured attitude, a no-nonsense, straightforward attitude.
It can be as subtle as a wink of his blue eyes, or as pronounced as a left hook thrown from the hip.
Therein lie the misperceptions and the mystery to the man who has coached Baltimore's first-year Canadian Football League team to the 82nd Grey Cup here Sunday against the B.C. Lions.
North of the border, Matthews is perceived as an egotistical monster who lives his personal life as loosely as he plays his defenses. Up here, he has been ripped for being arrogant, for changing jobs and for changing wives -- but never for losing. It's something he doesn't do.
"I coached with Don five years in Edmonton," Winnipeg coach Cal Murphy said yesterday. "To me, he is a good coach. He gets a lot out of his players. Some people may think he may be a bit cocky about it."
To be certain, Matthews knows his way around a good controversy. He waded through one in Winnipeg last week, leading up to the Eastern final against Murphy's Blue Bombers. But this time it wasn't only the perceived arrogance of Matthews at issue, but also his entire team.
By the time the melodrama played out, Murphy refused to shake Matthews' hand after Baltimore's 14-12 victory. It wasn't until Matthews phoned Murphy on Monday to correct some inaccuracies in the Winnipeg media that they resumed normal relations.
"I talked to him three times this week," Murphy said, "not all about that. Don and I don't socialize, but professionally, we have always gotten along and respected each other."
Hugh Campbell, general manager of the Edmonton Eskimos, is one of Matthews' best friends. Matthews was Campbell's defensive coordinator when the Eskimos won an unprecedented five straight Grey Cups from 1978 to 1982.
And Campbell has an appreciation for how Matthews' personality can sometimes be hard on relationships.
"What I think is, Don is totally immersed in football to a fault," Campbell said. "Sometimes, the only way to succeed is if you think football is the most important thing in the world -- even if deep down you know it's not the same as world peace.
"Don is good at that. He is so single-minded toward football. It's made for sacrifices at home, and with some friendships. But he's a good football coach. I don't think he offends the people who know him."
In 10 years as a CFL head coach, Matthews has never had a losing record with a team he had a full season (he went 5-6 in a cleanup role in Saskatchewan in 1991). He is the sixth-winningest coach in league history with 110 victories. And he was the second-fastest to reach 100 -- behind only Bud Grant, a Hall of Famer in the CFL and the NFL.
Success, in this case, may breed resentment among some of his peers.
"I'm sure it does," Matthews said.
"Guys that have losing records are heroes [in the CFL]. When you have success, people fire at you.
"I'd rather have success [and be disliked], than be a loser and loved."
Grudgingly or not, everyone who has worked with him gives him credit for being one of the league's best coaches.
"He is a believer in himself," said Mike McCarthy, a personnel consultant for the Ottawa Rough Riders this year. "He can be ego-centered a lot of times, but he has great pride in what he can do. The bottom line is, he's a good football coach."
McCarthy had a strained relationship with Matthews when they were together in Toronto in 1990. McCarthy was the general manager and Matthews the coach of a 10-8 playoff team.
"Don and I were never in a shouting match," McCarthy said. "Certain days he was a gem, certain days he was a little difficult.
"We get along. We're not dear friends, but we're not enemies. [Baltimore owner] Jim Speros asked me about Don a year ago. I was talking to Jim about the general manager job down there. At the last minute, Jim said he didn't want a GM. I told him Don was [an excellent] football coach."
McCarthy traces Matthews' image problems to his first head coaching job in Vancouver with the B.C. Lions in 1983.
"It started in Vancouver, with the media," McCarthy said. "When he went out there, he was cooperative. Once he had success, he was a little above interviews. . . . It was kind of the same thing in Toronto."
Matthews resigned from the Argonauts after the 1990 season without another job. He wound up with the Orlando Thunder in the World League, but a year later was back in the CFL with Saskatchewan.
When Matthews publicly traded insults with B.C. general manager Eric Tillman last year in a personal disagreement, Tillman was fined by the league.
Tillman refused to talk about the incident yesterday, but offered this appraisal of Matthews' job in Baltimore:
"My past differences with Don are minute, given the respect I have for the job he's done this year."
If Matthews is often misunderstood, a longtime friend says it simply comes from his no-nonsense approach.
"It's his honesty and straight-forwardness that sometimes comes across as cocky," said Steve Buratto, offensive coordinator with Baltimore and a friend of Matthews' since they played together at the University of Idaho in 1961.
"He's really a very genuine sort of guy. He isn't taken to a lot of exaggeration and false sorts of statements. He'll tell you what he thinks."