O’Shea moulding Blue Bombers in his image — tough and organized

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/06/2015 (3763 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Mike O’Shea has been carrying a clipboard around Blue Bombers training camp. He just never looks at it.

One year in and O’Shea’s message and directives are hitting home.

He knows where he’s heading and has now driven the route before. He’s got the road map open on the passenger seat of his truck but it’s covered with a couple of Tragically Hip CDs and a bag of sunflower seeds. For the more tech savvy in the crowd, he’s got the GPS on but the volume on the directions is flipped to mute. More importantly, the gang in the back seat knows which way he’s going to turn before he ever signals.

There was never any confusion in O’Shea’s mind about what he wanted but he was only one voice, albeit a strong one. Now, the entire organization seems to be singing from the same song sheet.

Blue Bombers veteran Chris Randle says O’Shea’s ways are now ingrained and there’s little time spent on those details. It’s deeper learning and based on O’Shea’s philosophies of team and togetherness.

“What coach O’Shea expects of us, we know already. For him, he likes the guys that don’t need coaching, that don’t need anything,” said Randle. “Right now, we have a bunch of guys in our locker-room that were in the system last year, and we’re all working on bringing the new guys along. As that goes, it trickles down like, OK, this is what coach O’Shea wants. But his presence is always there.

“He’s the overseer, making sure everything goes correctly, and he’s always there if we need him. But it’s our team, at the end of the day, and he puts that on us. He’s there, enforcing, making sure things don’t go out of line. We’re there trying to bring everyone along and build a great team, too.”

O’Shea was asked about being more comfortable in his shoes the other day and he said he didn’t feel any different.

Maybe so, but from the outside looking in there’s a noticeable difference in this camp. It’s brisker and the lessons go well beyond the surface. He’s teaching football calculus while, at times last year, he had to focus on simple addition and subtraction.

More and more, the modern football coach is a CEO. He sets the vision of an organization and then works to keep it on course. Bombers GM Kyle Walters was talking about his coach the other day and simply stated once training camp begins, it’s O’Shea’s show.

“Basically, we hand the organization over to him once training camp begins. He’s in charge of everything that goes on in terms of on the field and in the locker-room,” said Walters. “(CEO Wade Miller) and I have no issue with that. Hey, when you’re downstairs at the stadium and anywhere in football ops, there’s no question as to who is in charge. It’s Mike. And he doesn’t do it with a big stick or by yelling or screaming. He’s just got a presence. He’s a natural born leader and players want to follow him. People want to follow him.”

O’Shea is very firm in his beliefs. One of them, to never dump on any of his coaches or players to the media, can be confounding to observers of the team. Reporters want answers. O’Shea is willing to give answers, but will only go so far. He defended his offensive line and his defensive scheme last season when it was beyond obvious both were an issue.

Both those areas received massive overhauls in the off-season, which pretty much confirms O’Shea was seeing the same problems the rest of us were. But he doesn’t view dumping on people in a public manner as productive.

Offensive lineman Dominic Picard once played against O’Shea and is now in his first season under the second-year head coach.

“He’s a great leader,” said Picard. “And he’s a great teacher. I’ve known him since I’ve played against him. He was like a coach on the field. He was a model for me. That’s the approach that I’m trying to take, to be like a coach on the field, myself. He cares about his players, so that’s good. He’s got a plan in place. He played the game for so long, so X’s and O’s are not a problem for him. He’s always poised. He’s the man. I can’t wait to play for him (Friday) night, it’ll be a special feeling for sure.”

The Bombers lost eight of nine down the stretch last season but O’Shea was resolute in his support of his team. Randle said he and his teammates knew their boss was taking bullets he could easily have deflected.

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“It goes a long way. And it’s not like we don’t see it, it’s not like we don’t notice it. We try to stay tight as a locker- room. We do see him and how he cares for us, and it goes a long way within the locker-room,” said Randle.

The secret to success in any organization is identifying good people, putting them in leadership roles and then retaining them. It leads to continuity, stability and, ultimately, productivity.

O’Shea represents this chain for the Bombers. Continuity and stability are beginning to set in. Productivity should be next. The only questions are how fast and how far.

gary.lawless@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @garylawless