There have been so many historic moments over the course of 10 decades of existence for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, from the franchise’s inception to a dozen Grey Cup championships, from critical wins and blockbuster trades to dramatic plays on the field.

Count December 4, 2013, as one of the most significant and most important moments.

That day Blue Bombers President & CEO Wade Miller and GM Kyle Walters introduced Mike O’Shea as head coach following a 3-15 season and a stretch which had seen the club stumble by missing the playoffs in four of the previous five seasons.

They had also rolled through six different head coaches from 2004-13 in Dave Ritchie, Jim Daley, Doug Berry, Mike Kelly, Paul LaPolice and Tim Burke before committing to O’Shea.

The results didn’t come instantly — the Blue Bombers did rocket to a 4-1 record in O’Shea’s first five games as the boss — but the team missed the playoffs again in 2014-15 with 7-11 and 5-13 records.

Those who were paying attention did see that something was being built and since then the Blue Bombers have been one of the Canadian Football League’s elite organizations with nine straight playoff appearances and double-digit win seasons, two Grey Cup titles and five consecutive championship game appearances from 2019-24.

O’Shea was also twice named the CFL’s Coach of the Year, in 2021 and 2022.

His place among the Blue Bombers coaching legends was cemented with the first Grey Cup win in 2019 and is the latest in our ’10 Lists in 10 Days’ series.

And over time O’Shea has become the franchise leader in all-time coaching wins, having surpassed the iconic Bud Grant with a win in the 2024 Banjo Bowl. That night O’Shea deflected attention away from himself and attempted to shine a spotlight on those around him.

“There’s just so many people that have been here for a huge chunk of it that make it easy every single day, not only to be successful but to come to work just every single day,” he said that night. “My wife’s standing right there… my family’s been there for all of it, the 60-something losses that they feel, too.

“It is what it is. Over time these numbers just add up. But I don’t think we’re a numbers-based team, we’re a process-based team. We’ve got a room, a whole basement full of people that are all in on the process and the outcomes just happen.”

A Canadian Football Hall of Famer as a player with the Toronto Argonauts and Hamilton Tiger-Cats, O’Shea was initially working in medical sales after his retirement from the game when Jim Barker, the Boatmen’s GM, hired him as the special teams coordinator in 2010.

“He was making good money,” Barker told yours truly in 2021. “I remember saying, ‘Listen, I want you to come coach and start with special teams. You’ll be making less money, but it’s something that could turn out good for you down the road.’

“I always thought he would be a great coach. When he was on the field, he was a coach. He wasn’t afraid to tell players where to be. Back in those days we had great defences, but we didn’t have the smartest guys. Osh would always get them in the right place.

“He was just that guy who watched more film, he got players together to watch film… he just had that in him. And I believe that as a player, he really loved it. He was such a perfectionist, and it was like in the back of his mind he thought, ‘I don’t want to screw these guys up.’”

His reputation grew even more in Toronto and by the fall of 2013 he was seen as a legit head coaching candidate — despite not having worn the big headset before.

“You don’t need to have a big resumé sometimes to take that step up to be a head coach,” said Miller in a conversation with bluebombers.com in 2021. “It’s about how you are as an individual, the leader that you are, how you’re going to build and motivate your team and build something that’s long-lasting. Mike’s proven that.

“The players say they’ll go through a wall for him, but it’s really based on the opposite – he’ll go through the wall for them. He’ll run through a wall for each one of these guys, and that’s where the difference is for him as a coach. He cares about each player like they’re his family. He allows each player to be themselves as well, and that’s all a player asks for from a coach. There were lots of other good coaches out there when we hired him.

“It was just Mike had these other characteristics.”

All of those ‘other characteristics’ have shone through over the last 11 years with O’Shea being one of the cornerstones of the franchise’s rebirth.

Blue Bombers Top 10 all-time coaching wins:

1. Mike O’Shea (2014- ) — 117 (117-77-0)

2. Bud Grant (1957-66) — 102 (102-56-2)

3. Cal Murphy (1983-86; 1993-96) — 86 (86-51-1)

4. Dave Ritchie (1999-2004) — 52 (52-44-1)

5. Ray Jauch (1978-82) — 45 (45-35-0)

6. Mike Riley (1987-90) — 40 (40-32-0)

7. Bud Riley (1974-77) — 34 (34-28-2)

T-8. Reg Threlfall (1938-41) — 28 (28-8-0)

George Trafton (1951-53) — 28 (28-17-1)

10. Doug Berry (2006-08) — 27 (27-26-1)