Paul LaPolice says he is a better coach after 3 years honing his trade

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This article was published 08/12/2015 (3590 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Paul LaPolice says the man who will take over the Winnipeg Blue Bombers offence this coming season is smarter and more experienced than the head coach who got fired by the Bombers in 2012.

LaPolice told a news conference at Investors Group Field Tuesday morning that he has spent the three years since he got fired by the Bombers honing his trade and preparing himself for what he always hoped would be an eventual return to the sidelines.

“I think I’m certainly a better coach,” LaPolice said as the club unveiled him as their new offensive coordinator. “I didn’t just say — I’m going to work in television and take eight months off.

“I was a guest coach for two years with the Toronto Argonauts, working with their offence and special teams. That was beneficial to me…I went on 12 trips down to the U.S. to each year try and get better and do different things to just try and recognize different trends in the game so when I come back I could be ready with some of the newer trends and what’s happening.

“And certainly, watching every game that was played in the Canadian Football League for the past three years as part of my responsibilities (as a TSN analyst)…”

LaPolice replaces Marcel Bellefeuille, who led the Bombers offence the last two-plus seasons but was let go shortly after the 2015 season ended. The Bombers offence last season was near the bottom in most of the key offensive categories and was a big part of the reason the club finished 5-13 and missed the playoffs for the fourth year in a row.

LaPolice cited an improvement to the Bombers woeful run game and keeping QB Drew Willy upright as his top priorities next season. “We want to make sure we can effectively run the football and take some pressure off the quarterback. And we want to make sure we can do some things to get the ball out of his hand quickly,” said LaPolice.

“I’d like to make sure we’re not one dimensional.”

This will be LaPolice’s third tour of duty with the Bombers. He was the club’s offensive coordinator in 2002 and 2003 and Winnipeg’s head coach from 2010 until he was fired midway through the 2012 season.

LaPolice worked as an analyst on TSN’s CFL broadcasts since 2012 but he continued to live in Winnipeg with his wife and children. He said he had an opportunity this week to interview with another CFL team for a vacant offensive coordinator position but took the Winnipeg job instead, describing the opportunity to get back into coaching while not having to move his family a “dream come true.”

Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea said he and LaPolice will work quickly to decide which of the Bombers current assistant coaches will be retained. O’Shea said he’s still deciding whether he will hire a new special teams coordinator or continue to handle those duties himself, as he did for the latter part of the 2015 season following the firing of Pat Tracey.

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O’Shea revealed on Tuesday that he first approached LaPolice about the Bombers offensive coordinator job when O’Shea took over as Bombers head coach prior to the 2014 season, but LaPolice told him he wasn’t interested at that time.

O’Shea said he interviewed five candidates for the current vacancy over the past few weeks, but LaPolice stood out. “Throughout the entire conversation, I grew more and more excited about the opportunity to work together and I grew more and more confident that what Paul was going to give our players was going to put them into a position to be successful.”

The Bombers went to the Grey Cup in 2011 in LaPolice’s second year as head coach, but the team took a big step back in 2012 and he was fired that summer with the team languishing at 2-6.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek