When head coach Mike O’Shea was walking through the University of Guelph campus to and from Alumni Stadium where his Winnipeg Blue Bombers were practising this week, he couldn’t help but have a smile on his face.
“It’s been nice walking through campus from where we’re staying to the stadium,” he said. “I think one of the things it helps you realize is how great it is to be a part of something bigger at a university. Being part of a football team, it really does help you get through and helps you focus throughout your university career. It gives you something to believe in and hang on to every day.”
The Bombers worked out at the stadium for a few days as a bit of a change of pace and also to be able to get some full workouts in. Their schedule had five days between games against the Tiger-Cats in Hamilton and the Argonauts in Toronto.
During his time walking to and from the Gryphon Football Pavilion that the Bombers used as their base, O’Shea had time to think about his time with the Gryphons. And it wasn’t specific plays that came to mind.
“It’s interesting,” he said. “It’s not so much the playing as it is being in the old building, being in the old area, the locker room, the guys. I don’t know it’s specific plays or winning certain games or making plays -- that doesn’t pop in my head as much as the emotion it brings on. The gratitude. Really, how grateful I am to have been a part of something like that, a team that was good. A team that worked hard. A team that wanted to be excellent – and we had a lot of fun, too. It wasn’t about plays or wins, it was about what we were there for.”
O’Shea completed his playing days with the Gryphons as the defensive player of the year in Ontario university football in 1992. After being selected in the first round of the CFL draft that year by the Edmonton Eskimos, he was immediately dealt to the Ticats and would play in the league for 14 years (four with Hamilton and 10 with Toronto).
When his CFL playing career came to an end, he stayed with the Argos as an assistant coach and then became Winnipeg’s head coach in 2014 and now has 50 wins with the Bombers.
Each step along the way had to be a big one, but in typical O’Shea fashion, he didn’t really think about it.
“I don’t know that I’ve given myself time to really analyze that,” he said. “When I made the jump playing, I knew it was going to be a big jump, but I didn’t dwell on it or spent a lot of time dwelling on it. I just did what the coaches told me. When I started coaching, I just did what the head coach told me. Now that I’m a head coach, I just try and do what the other coaches tell me.”
And he’s taken no notice of his number 51 that adorns the Fence of Fame on the south end of the stadium.
“It’s a number,” he said. “I had a lot of fun here and I played with some fantastic players and under some great coaches. Thankfully I was, I guess, just smart enough to listen enough to have a decent career and keep going on with football because there were a lot of guys that gave me great advice that I guess I was smart enough to listen to.”
