Okanagan Sun sign former CFL kicker as new head coach

The Okanagan Sun have a new coach, one with CFL experience.

This week, Jamie Boreham was named the team’s new head coach. His hiring comes after former sideline boss Ben McAuley stepped down earlier this year after the Sun lost to the Langley Rams in the BCFC final.

“I’m looking forward to putting my stamp on this team,” said Boreham, 40, a former punter and placekicker who played nine seasons in the CFL with Hamilton, Saskatchewan and Toronto.

Boreham also played in the BCFC with the Abbotsford AirForce as a punter and defensive back. Boreham, originally from Vancouver, also played Canadian university football with UBC, Saskatchewan and Manitoba before joining the CFL. He also coached high school football after retiring.

Sun general manager Lawrence Nagy told Global News that Boreham is “familiar with us, we are familiar with him. He’s got a great track record; he’s had a great career in the CFL. We like his demeanor and how he handles players and his whole philosophy about coaching.”

During his CFL career, Boreham won a Grey Cup with Saskatchewan in 2007 – an experience, he says, which taught him how to be a leader.

“I got a good idea of how to do that and sometimes kids don’t know how to do that,” said Boreham, who is also a teacher. “And that’s my job now, to make them that person.”

Notably, it was the Sun who kickstarted Boreham’s junior football coaching career in 2012, when they appointed him special teams coach. Today, he’s well aware of the expectations of the brown and orange.

“The tradition of the Sun is first and foremost we have to do ourselves right, we have to do the community right,” he said. “I have tremendous respect for the club I got tremendous respect for their players past and present and I am just looking forward to this.”

Boreham’s only one day into his new job as head coach, but he already has plans and, according to him, it’s a new day for the Sun.

“We are going to bring a new type of attitude around here,” he said. “We’re going to win not at all costs, but we are going to do things properly; we are going to win.”

For more about Jamie Boreham, click here.