This season, the Canadian Football League (CFL) has set up a Women in Football program that allows nine women to spend four weeks on the coaching staff of a league franchise. In Ottawa, Meagan Ferguson had that opportunity.
The oval ball enthusiast is pleased to be an integral part of the head coach team Paul LaPolice.
Opportunities are there for women. You just have to be open. Players don’t see me as a female coach. They just think of me as a trainer. with respecthe assured.
The Prince Edward Island native was paired with the team’s defensive coordinator, mike benefits. She was not the only woman who participated in the Rouge et Noir camp. When not part of the Women in Football program, Nadine Doucouré was also invited.
I hope we encourage more women to follow their path. Here there is space for everyone. It was one of the first things I learned in footballsaid Nadia Doucuré, who became the first woman to coach the Carleton University Ravens.
” Male or female, no one is born with knowledge of football. We all learned along the way. “
One thing is certain, the coaching duo is attracting very good comments from mike benefits.
They coach defensive linemen, linebackers and defensive backs. They learned a lot, but the players also got better thanks to them. They are very good teachersproud of the man who is the father of two children.
The Women in Football program is proof that over the past few years, the enormous world of professional football has slowly begun to open its doors to women.
In the NFL, in the United States, 12 women held teaching positions last season. A record. Nasa CFL, currently has only one female full-time coach. This is Alberta Walter askedwith the BC Lions.
To its players, and to all women seeking careers in the world of sport, Meagan Ferguson gives them the following message: If you have a passion, keep working to achieve your goals. One day they may come true.
A late passion for football
The journey that led Meagan Ferguson the training camp at Rouge et Noir is both atypical and attractive.
Until 2015, he fully devoted himself to hockey practice. He even wore the colors of the University of New Brunswick program. Then, one night, a teammate invited him to a football party.
I thought it would be non-contact football, but it wasn’t. This is real football! I had a crush. Since then, I have never stopped participating.
She founded a women’s team on Prince Edward Island, while continuing to teach at the University’s women’s hockey club Holland Collegein Charlottetown.
Quick, I want to handle everything possible. I played, I directed and I refereed. Whatever I can put in my luggage, I dosays one who also earned a degree in kinesiology at the University of Ottawa in 2018.
Source: Radio-Canada
