On Saturday, Mike O’Shea’s 12th playoff game as head coach of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers will decide whether he’ll be on the sidelines for his fourth Grey Cup Game one week later. In both games, and probably in every game as long as he’s the Bombers’ coach, O’Shea will be shadowed by the Ghost of Grant.
That would be Harry Peter Grant, of course, otherwise known as Bud. As time and winning goes on, comparisons between The Legend and the only Winnipeg coach to approach such celestial status will multiply. Could Mike O’Shea be another Bud Grant?
From what I’ve read and heard of O’Shea, he thinks little of being measured for deity. There’s a bronze statue of Grant at the entrance of Investors Group Field, at Gate 1 of course. Asked about having a statue of him, O’Shea quipped: “Maybe a snowman.”
As somebody who grew up in the Grant era and began a sportswriting career 18 months before he left, I have to say the Bombers never had another coach like him when they hired O’Shea in 2014. In between, 16 others had that chance. Grant was Winnipeg’s head man for decades, took them to five Grey Cup games that should have been six straight. When he departed, it was generally acknowledged he’d walk on the water of Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes to get to Minneapolis, where he became the Vikings’ head coach. Put it another way: Nobody in Winnipeg was shocked when Grant’s Vikings played in four consecutive Super Bowls, only that he never won.
The comparisons between Grant, who died last spring at 95, and O’Shea were inevitable once the current head coach started to compare with his predecessor’s success and longevity. But for COVID, this season would have been O’Shea’s 10th, and if he gets the Bombers into next weekend’s Grey Cup, he will be the only Bombers coach to take them to four* championship games in a row (the asterisk is because only a pandemic inter- rupted the streak), one more than Grant.
Comparisons?
Grant became the Bombers’ 12th head coach at age 29. O’Shea became their 30th at age 43. Grant’s teams won 102 games during the regular season, O’Shea’s have won 96. Grant won the west five times, O’Shea has won first place the last three seasons. Grant was Coach of the Year once, but there was no such award for half his coaching career, and O’Shea’s in position to win his third.
Post-season, Grant’s teams were 13-4, O’Shea’s 7-4. Grant’s winning percentage for all games was .655, O’Shea’s is .607. Grant was 4-2 in the Grey Cup, O’Shea is 2-1. The Bombers had gone 16 seasons before Grant won his first, and 28 seasons before O’Shea ended the team’s longest streak of futility.
It’s possible that Mike O’Shea will never match the record and the reverence of Grant, but he has already established that he’s a head coach who is admired and respected. “He coaches the person before the player,” one of the Bombers told a reporter this summer, a sentiment that could have been echoed by Grant’s players.
Bud Grant was one of a kind. With the “ghost” watching, O’Shea has made them two of a kind.
