Women’s baseball: Stephenson says coaching lets her go to bat for progress

Ashley Stephenson wasn’t sure what the future would hold for her playing career when she helped Canada’s national team to a bronze-medal finish at the Women’s Baseball World Cup last August.

Stephenson, then 35 years old and a 15-season veteran of the program, was one of the most decorated female athletes to ever wear the uniform, the winner of a Pan Am silver medal to go with two World Cup silvers and four bronzes.

Stephenson knew she wanted to get into coaching eventually, but it took tearing a ligament in her knee while refereeing a university hockey game in January to help persuade her. André Lachance, Baseball Canada’s director of business and sport development, approached her about a coaching role in February.

“I just decided maybe the stars are aligning for a reason, so that’s why I called it,” said Stephenson, who officially retired in March.

Stephenson will be Canada’s third-base coach when the world’s second-ranked team opens a qualifying tournament for next year’s World Cup on Sunday, facing No. 9 Dominican Republic in Aguascalientes, Mexico. And it’s more than just the in-game responsibilities that drew her to her new role.

“I really want our sport to grow,” Stephenson said earlier this week. “I think we’ve had big strides but I also think, in the last few years, we’ve really plateaued … There’s a huge female sports movement and movement for females in general so I think we should jump on that right now.”

Take the coming tournament, for example. The schedule for the weeklong event, which also includes Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, the United States and Venezuela, was not released until Thursday. A host for next year’s World Cup has yet to be announced. Marketing for these tournaments is almost non-existent.

Stephenson knows Canada’s women’s program is further ahead of other countries and she believes Baseball Canada is working hard to help grow the sport. But comparisons to other programs, such as the junior men’s team, are stark, she said.

“We’re on the national team and I have never once been bought a glove in 15 years,” she said. “That is crazy.”

In the short term, Stephenson is focused on helping Canada qualify for the World Cup, wherever it may be held. The national team has lost nine players since the last tournament, including seven starters. The entire infield will be made up of new players, most of them teenagers. But Stephenson is encouraged by the next generation.

“The biggest thing is the young talent we have coming up is unreal ... and we’re letting them play,” she said.

Coaching young women instead of playing alongside them is something the former third baseman is not sure she has fully digested.

“I’ll be honest, I think I haven’t really felt the full wrath of a transition yet,” she said. “I am a bit nervous. I don’t think I’ll regret my decision but in the back of my mind I always wonder. I went to nationals (in July) and I think I hit .500 and we won gold and I was like, ‘Oh man, Ash, Ash. What are you doing? What are you doing?’ ”

But she believes this new role will allow her to be more effective when it comes to pushing the program forward and fighting for women’s baseball as a whole.

“We’ve just been chasing our tail, I feel like, for the last 10 years and I’m really tired of chasing my tail,” she said. “I get more of a behind-the-scenes look from the position that I’m in now.”