A former Bellerose Bulldog is chomping at the bit to direct the offensive attack for the B.C. Lions.
Jordan Maksymic was named the offensive co-ordinator of the Canadian Football League team after coaching stints with the Edmonton Eskimos and Ottawa RedBlacks spanning nine years.
“It’s very exciting. It’s an opportunity that I’ve been working towards to be an offensive co-ordinator and a play caller in this league,” said the 2004 MVP of the Bulldogs in his Grade 12 season at quarterback.
Maksymic, 32, joined the Lions after the Eskimos parted ways with head coach Jason Maas on Nov. 27 after an 8-10 season and a playoff berth as a crossover team.
Under the fiery Maas, Maksymic served as the quarterbacks' coach and pass-game co-ordinator for three years before the promotion to offensive co-ordinator in 2019.
“Coach Maas was the play caller so moving to B.C. and being both the offensive co-ordinator and the play caller is a little step up,” Maksymic said. “You have the ability now to do all those plans that you worked on throughout the week and you put together and you can actually be the one to get them called in the game and see them executed as you had envisioned.”
Maksymic is familiar with several members of the Lions’ football operations and coaching staff.
“Obviously, in this business it's who you know so I had some people that I've worked with in the past, both in Ottawa and Edmonton, and in particular (general manager) Ed Hervey and (head coach/defensive co-ordinator) Rick Campbell so with those two there I had personal relationships with those guys already,” Maksymic said. “It couldn’t be a better fit and I couldn’t be more excited.”
Maksymic will also be reunited with quarterback Mike Reilly and during their three seasons together with the Eskimos from 2016 to 2018 Reilly was selected the CFL’s Most Outstanding Player in 2017, led the league in passing yards three times and threw 30 touchdown passes in 2017 and 2018.
“Obviously, Mike’s credentials speak for themselves. He’s a Grey Cup winner and a Grey Cup MVP (in 2015) and a league MVP. He’s among the elite players in this league,” Maksymic said. “To have a professional relationship with him and know the way he works and the way he prepares and the things he likes and the things he doesn’t, that’s a huge head start.
“On the personal side, he’s just an outstanding human being. We got along extremely well in our three years together in Edmonton and we kept in touch the one year we were apart so to be reunited both personally and professionally with Mike is something I’m really looking forward to.”
The game plan offensively with the Lions is to put players in positions to be successful.
“We have a base system that obviously I learned from guys like Jason Maas and other guys on staffs that have been a part of similar offensive schemes, but from there it's really just kind of mining the data and film to see what these players do best. Obviously, I’m not too familiar with a bunch of the guys so that’s what the offseason is for and the offensive coaches and I are going to be looking through film and making notes to see what these guys do best and then we have training camp as well to figure that out and then the system will kind of evolve from there,” Maksymic said.
The Lions are coming off a 5-13 campaign that led to the firing of first-year head coach DeVone Claybrooks and Campbell, who coached the Redblacks to a Grey Cup victory in 2016, was brought on board. Campbell was also a coach with the Eskimos when Hervey played for the Green and Gold and also when Hervey joined the team’s scouting staff.
The Lions won one of their first 11 games before making a late charge for a playoff spot with four consecutive victories when Reilly broke his left wrist against the Eskimos and the loss eliminated the Lions from playoff contention. Reilly signed a four-year $2.9 million contract with the Lions as a free agent after the 2018 season.
“It’s going to be a pretty new team from the top down with the head coach and the entire coaching staff for the most part. Obviously, in professional football players move in and players move out so it will be kind of a breath of fresh air for everybody at all levels of that football team and I know guys are already excited to get going even though we’re still in January,” Maksymic said.
Campbell was with the Eskimos in 2011 when Maksymic broke into the CFL coaching ranks under head coach Kavis Reed as the video co-ordinator for two years and offensive assistant in 2013.
Maksymic joined the Redblacks in 2014 with Campbell in charge of the expansion team and the next year Ottawa lost the Grey Cup final to the Eskimos.
Maksymic coached the running backs and was an offensive assistant with the Redblacks before rejoining the Eskimos in 2016 as the quarterbacks' coach under Maas, who was the offensive co-ordinator and quarterbacks' coach in Ottawa.
“I had the opportunity in Ottawa and in my second go-round in Edmonton to learn from so many great coaches and I like to think I did a decent job of being a sponge and doing the best job I could to learn from those guys, just a lot of smart football minds,” Maksymic said. “You don't try and fit round pegs into square holes and force things just because you want to do it, that’s not the way to do it, and that's what I learned. I learned to do what your players do best and things kind of work out if that is your philosophy.”
Maksymic is where he is today because of the Bulldogs. He made his football debut in Grade 11 as a receiver and back-up quarterback and in Grade 12 was the starter under centre.
The next year with head coach Chad Hill as his mentor, Maksymic took over the offensive co-ordinator’s role on the junior Bulldogs midway through the rebirth of the Bellerose junior program. After two seasons with the junior Bulldogs, Maksymic's friendship with former St. Albert resident and CFL head coach Tom Higgins led to a position as water boy at the Calgary Stampeders’ training camp and that paved the way to work in the team’s video department in 2007 and 2008 before going to Northern Arizona University for the next two years as a graduate assistant.
“It’s obviously a pretty cool thing when you take a step back and look at it and think about it, but it's not something that I had planned or something that I envisioned when I started,” Maksymic said of his coaching career. “I was told right from the start, and it’s some of the best advice I've ever got, is to be the best at the job you're currently doing and everything kind of works itself out. I wasn’t sitting there 10 years ago thinking about being an offensive co-ordinator, I was thinking about doing the best job I could possibly do in the role that I was as currently in and that philosophy and that mindset has kind of worked along the way. I’ve just kind of put my head down and done my job wherever I was employed and things kind of continued to work themselves out.
“I’m very excited to be where I’m at, but that mindset and that philosophy will continue as I go forward.”
