Friendly fire

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This article was published 09/12/2021 (1369 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

HAMILTON — In was early February 2010 and Jim Barker had just taken over the Toronto Argonauts, hired for a second stint as head coach after leading the team a decade earlier.

Having missed out on the first two months of the off-season, Barker was scrambling to put a team of co-ordinators and position coaches around him. He knew time was of the essence but he wanted to be sure to think things through, understanding the right people can make all the difference.

It would take just nine days when Barker knew he had a special mix.

“More than anything else, these are guys I want to be around and go to war with,” he told reporters at the time.

Fast-forward nearly 12 years and Barker is still gushing over two of his former employees. And he couldn’t be prouder to see Mike O’Shea and Orlondo Steinauer preparing to do battle for a second straight season (the COVID hiatus notwithstanding), their respective teams back again vying for the Grey Cup in Hamilton this week.

Barker wouldn’t have known back then that O’Shea would move on from being special-teams co-ordinator in Toronto to become head coach of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, a position he’s held since 2014. He had no clue that Orlondo Steinauer, who Barker hired as the Argonauts defensive backs coach and then defensive co-ordinator a year later, would find his way to Hamilton, where he was named head coach of the Tiger-Cats in 2019 after five years with the club and a brief stay at Fresno State.

That’s not to suggest he’s surprised — far from it. And while Barker would like to take some credit for their rise — after all, both had committed to day jobs outside of the game when he came calling — Barker knew they possessed the kind of traits back then that would not only make them great leaders of a football team but had the potential to usher in a new era of coaching in the Canadian Football League.

“It’s how they live their lives. They’re both fantastic husbands, fantastic fathers,” Barker said over the phone Wednesday.

“When I decided I was going to get married, the coach of the place where I was at said you’ll never make it as a coach, or you’ll never make it as a husband because you can’t do both. The times have changed. These guys are part of the newer generation and they do it differently.”

While a rematch of the 2019 Grey Cup between the Bombers and Tiger-Cats has made for a fascinating storyline in 2021, it’s no coincidence that O’Shea and Steinauer will be the ones scaling opposite sidelines on Sunday. Both have been able to bring out the best in their players, creating a culture within their teams that demand accountability and hard work, but is built on respect and trust.

“When you look at both of them, the one huge thing that they have in common is they were both in the locker room as players and understand the culture is not created by a coaching staff or by a coach,” Barker said. “Culture is created by the players and as coaches your job is to empower those players to develop the culture that’s helping.”

While each is different in his own right — O’Shea comes across as more reserved, while Steinhauer is more grandiose in his body language — they’re undoubtedly cut from the same cloth. Back again for another Grey Cup coaches press-conference on Wednesday, each took turns finishing the other’s answers.

“Besides all the X’s and O’s and just how damn smart he is, he’s just a better dude,” O’Shea said when asked what he appreciates most about Steinauer. “He’s just a better guy that you want to hang out with and have a beer with. That’s pretty simple for me.”

“I could say the exact same thing in reverse, and it would be 100 per cent authentic,” Steinauer replied. “Not 99 per cent, but 100 per cent.”

The two first met at training camp for the NFL’s Detroit Lions in 1996, but it wasn’t until 2000 that they became teammates, playing in Hamilton. The next year, they both signed with Toronto and spent the next eight seasons with the Argonauts, winning a Grey Cup together in 2004.

As players, O’Shea and Steinauer both had the reputation of being meticulous when it came to the small details of the game. O’Shea was a bruising Canadian middle linebacker and Steinauer a versatile defensive back from the U.S. But they bonded over their love for football and often spent hours together, well after everyone was gone, breaking down film in hopes of gaining an edge over their opponent.

In a game as violent as football, a sport where the result of each week can alter an entire season, it can be easy to rule with an iron fist. While yelling and screaming used to define the average coach, O’Shea and Steinauer take a much different approach.

“You can label whatever you want to label: Millennials, this generation, that generation, raised with a phone, not with a phone. They’re people,” Steinauer said. “You relate to people and you’re authentic, it’ll give you the best opportunity.

He added: “Humans and people make mistakes. So, there’s gotta be a certain amount of grace.”

Ask their players and it’s as if they’re talking about the same person. In the case of Tiger-Cats linebacker Jovan Santos-Knox, he knows what it’s like to play for both coaches and he’s grateful for having such examples of leadership during his time in the CFL.

“It’s kind of scary how similar they are. They pay so much attention to detail. They coach up the little things. One of my biggest things about coming to Hamilton is I wanted to be coached as hard as I was coached in Winnipeg and I got here and I’ve been challenged every single day,” Santos-Knox said.

“Coach (Steinauer), he’s just a guy you want to leave everything out on the field for and it’s like that with both coaches.”

When Simoni Lawrence joined the Tiger-Cats in 2013 he said Steinhauer, who was in his first season as defensive co-ordinator of the Tiger-Cats, told him to simply be himself. Lawrence has developed into one of the most familiar faces in the league, his personality as colourful as it gets. He’s also one of the most talented players in the CFL, voted for a second straight season as the East nominee for the most outstanding defensive player.

“If it wasn’t for coach (Steinauer), Lord knows where I would be right now,” Lawrence said. “He’s the ultimate coach and not just a coach, he’s an ultimate person as well.”

Like Steinauer, O’Shea understands the fine line between acting when necessary and staying away when needed. He has spent years building a locker room in Winnipeg full of players that value one another and genuinely care about the team’s collective success.

“Osh is definitely a unique coach with a unique coaching style, one that I’ve never seen before or been around. But it’s one that I respect the hell out of,” Bombers running back Andrew Harris said.

“He gets the most out of all the guys that are playing and the guys that are on the staff. He has a bunch of respect from everyone in the building, but from the player standpoint, he kind of lets us run the show with his little bits and pieces of what he wants to see and he’s not a dictator. He’s a guy that you can go to with anything and have full trust in talking to him about anything, whether it’s family stuff or something on the field. It’s almost like a big brother mindset but also one that isn’t in the higher power there, that you respect and want to go to war for.”

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“He lets us be who we are,” added Bombers offensive lineman Patrick Neufeld. “He implicitly trusts us, not just as football players but as people. He’s brought in character people, people that I think he sees a little bit of himself in.”

The Bombers and Tiger-Cats will do battle on Sunday at Tim Hortons Field, and you can be sure of a couple things. Both teams will be well prepared, and both will be willing to put it all on the line for their coach.

May the best man win.

jeff.hamilton@freepress.mb.ca

twitter: @jeffkhamilton

Jeff Hamilton
Multimedia producer

Jeff Hamilton is a sports and investigative reporter. Jeff joined the Free Press newsroom in April 2015, and has been covering the local sports scene since graduating from Carleton University’s journalism program in 2012. Read more about Jeff.

Every piece of reporting Jeff produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.