Bellerose Bulldogs Football

Jordan Maksymic is climbing the coaching ladder one rung at a time after starting his football career at the high school level with the Bellerose Bulldogs.

The junior Bulldogs’ assistant coach in 2005 and 2006 has risen through the ranks with dogged determination to become the offensive assistant for the Edmonton Eskimos.

“I learned kind of early on that if you’re going to be successful you’re going to have to work for it,” Maksymic said. “I’ve devoted a lot of my life and time to learning and studying the game and being around the game and talking to those who know best and I carry that with me to this day. I try and improve every day, whether I’m learning something or getting something done.”

Maksymic, 26, didn’t play a down of football until Grade 11 as a receiver and backup quarterback for the Bulldogs. He started at quarterback in his 2004 senior year and was named team’s MVP.

The next year Maksymic joined Chad Hill’s staff on the rebirth of the Bellerose junior team. He took over as offensive coordinator midway through the season, as the Bulldogs went to the metro Edmonton premier final and lost 29-9 to the St. Albert Hawks.

Maksymic held the same title in 2006 before connections with former St. Albert resident and CFL head coach Tom Higgins brought him to the Calgary Stampeders. The rest is history.

“To be around football and be around the sport and be on a team kind of thing, that was always something I knew I wanted to do,” Maksymic said. "After I graduated (from Bellerose) I worked with Chad for a couple of years with the junior team so I kind of dipped my toe into the coaching pool there. I liked what it was all about and then I wound up in Calgary. I was just supposed to be there for a training camp and I kind of stood back after a couple of days and said ‘wow, these guys get to do it as a career kind of thing’ so I decided to take a run at it.”

Hill knew Maksymic was something special when they worked together in junior.

“He was an excellent young coach. It was obvious, even at his young age, that he had what it takes to be a football coach,” Hill said. “We’re all really proud of his accomplishments in his young coaching career.”

Maksymic described his coaching debut at Bellerose as invaluable.

“The experiences that I had working with the kids and being a part of a team and seeing your hard work kind of pay off was great,” he said. “That first year I don’t think we were supposed to do as well as we did but we wound up in the conference final. We had a bunch of young kids and to see them buy in and to see that team come together was really rewarding.”

Maksymic's current role as offensive assistant is “a basement position but you’ve got to start somewhere.”

“My job is to make sure that the offensive coordinator for sure and the offensive position coaches have an easier time doing their jobs so I’m doing all the game breakdowns and compile all the information for our scouting reports, that kind of work,” he said. “I’m kind of looking forward a week so that the offensive position coaches and coordinator can just focus on the week at hand and the task at hand and then when the next week is upon us I have all that information and everything is ready. I just kind of feed it to them so they can formulate the game plan from what I’ve broken down.”

Last year Maksymic did double duty as the Eskimos’ video coordinator and offensive assistant.

“It was about a 50/50 split last year between video and the offence,” he said. “(Offensive assistant) was a position Kavis (Reed, the head coach) wanted me to move into but we didn’t really have anybody to take over the video department at that time so I still had a hand in that. I had a couple of assistants in the video department that I was in charge of and I just made sure things ran smoothly there.

“It was also kind of my initiation to the coaching world. I was given some different tasks and the big thing was I was able to get on to the field and run the scout teams and all that kind of stuff. That is where the big experience came in.”

Two years ago Maksymic joined the Eskimos as a video assistant and quickly mastered “a pretty advanced piece of software” that all CFL teams use to create data from the game film they receive from the teams.

“There is a lot of hours spent in front of the computers and TV screens watching clips over and over again kind of thing, trying to find that missing piece, that edge,” Maksymic said. “The video department’s job is to make sure everything there is running smoothly so that if a coach wants to go and see all of B.C.’s run plays from the left hash on the 44 yard line when it’s snowing out they can technically do that by clicking a couple of buttons so they need a few people to control all of that.”

Breaking down game footage is a long, tedious task.

“There comes a point late at night when you’ve been here (at the office) for 14 or 15 hours and you have to get up and take a walk around to refocus yourself. That sets in later at night but not too often,” Maksymic said. “But it’s not a real bad deal when you get to sit back and get paid for watching football all day.”

Maksymic arrived at the Eskimos after two years as a graduate assistant at Northern Arizona University.

“In 2010 I graduated in December from NAU and I had some opportunities down in the States but I always knew I wanted to be up here in Canada. I wanted to be part of the CFL. I had two great years in Calgary. It’s what I knew and it’s what I grew up watching,” he said. “I just sent out my resumes and worked the contacts and the networks I knew in the league. I think that offseason four of the eight teams switched head coaches.

“I just wanted an opportunity somewhere and for it to happen here in Edmonton was pretty special, just to get in here and work as hard as I can to stay part of this team and the tradition and everything that this organization has.”

Maksymic’s role at NAU was similar to what he did last year with the Eskimos.

“I was always banging down doors looking for something coaching-wise to do and in year two it kind of evolved into video coordinator. Offensive graduate assistant was my official title,” he said. “I was looking ahead, doing the breakdowns and doing all the grunt work, but I learned from a lot of great people. I’d say that is where I learned most of my stuff, that second year at NAU.”

Maksymic initially got his foot in the CFL door with the Stampeders.

“We were good family friends with the Higgins family when Tom was with the Eskimos and at that point he was down in Calgary and I was looking for a summer job. I got in touch with Tom and I went down there just as the training camp water boy. One thing led to another and a position opened in the video department and I was there for the next two years.”

A few years later Maksymic is working for the same team he grew up cheering for. He is confident the Eskimos will emerge as a legitimate Grey Cup contender this season.

“With Ed (Hervey, the general manager) and Kavis calling the shots there is no question we’re headed back in that direction,” Maksymic said. “I believe we will be a strong, competitive team in each of the 18 games and hopefully good things happen.”