Eskimos defensive tackles Eddie Steele and Don Oramasionwu have been rooted in the trenches together long before they ever donned the Green and Gold.
Through the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, the pair have forged a long standing bond not often seen in professional football.
Steele and Oramasionwu (a.k.a. Donny O) have shared so much throughout their career it only seems fitting that the duo share the interior of the Eskimos defensive line.
“It’s pretty neat. It doesn’t happen often,” says Steele, who first met Oramasionwu in 2003. “I haven’t heard of a situation like this before. It’s kind of surreal sometimes to think we’re here.”
It began with a chance encounter.
Steele was making his first visit to Winnipeg’s Kelvin High School. The son of former Hamilton Tiger-Cats linebacker Leroy Steele was searching for a high school that catered to his football aspirations.
“I was back and forth between two schools, so I was checking Kelvin out,” says Steele. “When I walked through the front door with the head coach, Don was walking by and he introduced me.”
“Don was actually one of the first people I met.”
One thing in particular stood out to the then 15-year-old Steele.
“Man, this guy is big. He’s a big dude,” says Steele. “Don’s always had the size that he has now. I was like, ‘wow… this guy’s in high school?’”
Oramasionwu remembers the first meeting too. He was entering his senior year at Kelvin when Head Coach John Romu introduced him to the “chubby, light-skinned kid with an afro.”
“(Romu) came up to me and told me ‘this is Eddie Steele’,” says Oramasionwu. “I kind of took him under my wing from there.”
Oramasionwu had a huge role in shaping Eddie into the player he is today.
The elder of the two defensive tackles had already established himself in the gym and paired it with the work ethic expected of a professional athlete. Steele, on the other hand, wasn’t the muscular 280-pound athlete he is today.
Oramasionwu had Steele pegged at hefty 340.
“He was kind of a lazy kid at the beginning, but he saw how some of us other guys worked, and he followed it like any younger kid would,” Oramasionwu says.
Steele freely admits he needed to change his habits to progress from high school football to college, then the pros. Donny O was a huge influence in that transformation.
“I attribute a lot of that hard work to Don and how he pushed me at a young age,” says Steele. “I used to skip work outs, but he always pushed me and got me to get in the gym.”
“He was always on my back and on my case to get me better.”
Nothing worth having comes easy.
The reward for the teammates’ commitment was an undefeated season at the University of Manitoba.
The duo hoisted the 2007 Vanier Cup together — Canadian university football’s highest honour — in front of 26,787 fans as members of the Manitoba Bisons. The 28-14 victory over Saint Mary’s University is immortalized with 51 diamonds on their championship rings and a tattoo on Steele’s bicep.
“We were dominant. Very dominant,” says Steele. “In fact, the year before I red-shirted and the Bisons won every game but were kicked out of the playoffs in the second round. To come back and win every game, including the championship … that was pretty special.”
“We knew what we had to do. We knew we were the best team in the country for two straight years. We had unfinished business — flat out. We had a mission to do and we did it.”
Both players would move on from their Manitoba triumph through the CFL Draft.
Steele was picked by his father’s team, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Oramasionwu was selected by his hometown Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
Despite the different paths, they would eventually wear the same jersey once again as members of the Edmonton Eskimos.
It was in Edmonton where Steele was given the chance to turn the tables and offer guidance to Oramasionwu. Don was injured in a 2014 game against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, severely injuring his knee. It happened to be the same injury that caused Steele to miss the majority of his season two years earlier.
“Throughout the whole offseason, every day we would talk about the rehab process,” says Steele. “I told him to be patient, bide his time and he was able to put the work in.”
“It one of the worst knee injuries you can have and it’s kind of crazy we both went through the same thing,” says Oramasionwu.
“I had a lot of help from my teammates, Almondo Sewell also called or texted me every day seeing how I was doing. It’s good to have those guys around.”
Healthy and ready to go, the two kids from Manitoba have come a long way since their first meeting at Kelvin High School.
It all goes back to that commitment to greatness.
“Growing up, we always knew we wanted to play pro ball, so we put the work in and made it happen,” says Steele.
“I put pressure on myself just to be great. I want to be known as one of the best Canadian DTs to play the game. That’s what I put on myself.”
The hard work Oramasionwu had — the same one he helped instill in Steele — have made them the lone survivors. The long-time teammates are the only active players left from their Vanier Cup team.
“It’s not really a surprise,” says Oramasionwu. “I planned for it. I worked hard for it. And, I’m not done yet.”
