Sean Oleksewyz discusses new full-time role with Bisons, Football Manitoba

Sean Oleksewycz is a household name in the local football scene.

A WHSFL alumni of River East, he played defensive back at the university level for Mount Allison, returning as defensive coordinator between 2010-17 at the WHSFL level. In 2018 as a rookie head coach, he led the Kodiaks to their first varsity title in over two decades, and the following year he was added to Brian Dobie's Bisons football staff as a defensive backs coach. 

Under the tutelage of Oleksewycz and Rich Urbanovich, four players from Manitoba's secondary have been named all-stars since 2019, while the group as a whole has been one of the best statistically over the last three seasons. Additionally, in 2021, Manitoba advanced to the Hardy Cup for the first time since 2014. 

The man they call "Ollie," has also been a tried and true supporter of Football Manitoba's High Performance Program. He's been a defensive coordinator at the U16 level and defensive backs coach at the U18 level, and the U16 team's last victory at the Western Challenge came with Ollie on staff in 2018. 

Suffice to say, Coach O cares about long-term athlete development in Manitoba, and he has the experience to back it up. With all this in mind, he was the perfect choice for a new full-time, hybrid role split between Football Manitoba and the Bisons football progam. 

'Well go from the Bisons program down'
As Director of High Performance for Football Man, he'll oversee the implementation of a streamlined development process, aimed to help aspiring high school players grasp basic university concepts earlier on. This will ideally make their transition to the Bisons, or another post-secondary program, smoother. 

"We'll go from the Bisons program down. So if [defensive coordinator] Stan Pierre has some terminology that's using just his base, maybe ten things, those would be streamlined to the U18 program and U16 program so those kids already have a base of what seam is called, or read is called. By the time they get to the U of M or another university level, they have a better understanding," he says. 
 
"It's not going to take the coaches who are on those staffs away from what they like to do. But it's going to help both programs."

There will also be an emphasis on "doing a better job of making sure we're up to the standards of what other provinces bring."

"I have a lot experience at the tournament. I've been to U16, I've been to U18, I've been to both as a player. I think I have a lot of different perspectives that people don't get. We want to take care of our athletes," he says. 

"That means dealing with mental performance coaches before we go to the tournament, and how we get these kids prepared physically with our strength and conditioning coaches at the high-performance program. They have a great system down there. We want to streamline that and make sure it's easier for a player or family to see."



"We're going to try and do some new things," added Olle. "Maybe an offensive and defensive lineman-based lifting program in January. We're in the details of trying to prepare that for our kids, because we have to get stronger as a province up front. I think it's one thing we realized at the Canada Cup this year."

'It's a huge deal personally'
The Bisons side of the job, which kicks into high gear this week and will will full-go until the end of the U SPORTS season, "kind of takes care of itself."

"I'm basically doing the same thing I was doing down here before, I was just coming from the school. I was down here 2:30 to 10:30 three nights a week and still working a full-time job."

Ollie has more on his plate this year though. On top of his defensive back duties, he'll be taking over as special teams coordinator, and he's also the program's recruiting coordinator. 

"It's a huge deal personally. I never thought I would be at the U of M, and be a full-time staff member. To have a person here when Brian's away recruiting, that can take some of the burden off his daily interactions with academic advisors, or other recruiting questions, that's huge. We just came out of the blackout period, and I probably had close to 250 hudl tapes in my DMs by noon on August 1," he says. 

"I'm a younger coach still who can develop under coach P here and coach Dobie, who are great coaches, and I've been lucky enough to work with coach [Ryan] Karhut on special teams, and pick [2022 special teams coodinator] DJ [Lalama's] brain a little bit here and there. Now coming into my own coordinator role, I'll take a little bit of what each team does and what we've done in past years and kind of mesh it together and see what I like and what I don't like."