Trailblazing Stephenson hopes to inspire more women to pursue career in baseball

Women’s National Team star Ashley Stephenson was recently hired as a coach for the Toronto Blue Jays’ High-A Vancouver Canadians. Photo: Baseball Canada

January 31, 2023

By Melissa Verge

Canadian Baseball Network

Baseball was eight-year-old Ashley Stephenson’s escape.

On a small crescent street in Mississauga where she grew up, the now 40-year-old found great solace in sport, and a support system she could turn to when life was difficult. It became an important outlet for her along with hockey when her father, Doug, unexpectedly passed away.

“Every time I went to the rink or the diamond it was just fun, I fell in love with it,” Stephenson said. “I didn’t have to worry about what was going on at home or anything else like that, it was just a safe place for me.”

Thirty-two years later, that passion has become her career. An impressive resume and a lifetime love has landed her a job as the second female coach in Blue Jays history. The 15-year Women’s National Team veteran will report for Spring Training this month, and fly to Vancouver in early April for her new role with the Jays High-A affiliate Canadians.

Her coaching role will involve sharing duties at first base and helping with some defensive and base running responsibilities.

After Stephenson retired from the Women’s National Team in 2018, coaching seemed like a natural progression for her, she said. In 2019, she led Canada to a bronze medal at the COPABE Women’s Pan-American Baseball Championships. Three years later, she went on to become the first woman to manage the Women’s National Team.

Stephenson describes her coaching style as similar to her playing style - intense and passionate.

That intensity and passion is something Andre Lachance, who served as coach of the national team for years, has witnessed first hand. Lachance coached Stephenson for 15 years dating back to 2004, her first year with the Women's National Team.

“For years she's been one of our leaders, but not only one of our leaders, mainly one of our key leaders on our team, and probably one of the reasons we have had so much success over time internationally,” Lachance said.

This opportunity will give her a different level of knowledge and experience that he's hoping she can bring back to teach Canada’s female athletes.

The Mississauga native has already had a huge impact. Long before she was named as the second female coach in Blue Jays history, the passion and hardwork that have got her to where she is today have also made her someone young athletes look up to.

In a young girl’s room, there’s a picture of Stephenson plastered to the wall. It’s from a Jays Amataur Baseball Camp that she helped instruct at many years ago, camps that she has been helping out with for more than a decade.

That picture, Stephenson is told by the girl who plastered it up herself, stayed up for 10 years. Claire Johnson grew up and has followed in the footsteps of her role model, now involved with the Women’s National Team program.

“It’s nice to hear those stories,” Stephenson said. “I enjoy being a face that young girls can look up to, but also that young boys can see as people who deserve respect in the sport as well.”

The current coaching opportunity for Stephenson started to roll into motion a few years prior. Back in 2019, she attended the MLB Take the Field program. When she attended again in 2021, Toronto native Elizabeth Benn, who was then helping run the program, forwarded her resume to Blue Jays assistant general manager Joe Sheehan. At a similar time, TJ Burton, program manager, Amateur Baseball had brought up her name to Sheehan.

“Two worlds kind of collided, so that kind of started it all, and he [Joe Sheehan] gave me a call and we started chatting from there.”

As a player, she had great mentors that she looked up to and helped lead her in the right direction, a position she’s now looking forward to being in for young Jays talent.

“To be able to help players fulfill dreams is kind of what motivates me and drives me,” she said. “I want to just be able to help them get to where they want to go.”

When she was young, there weren't women in the kind of role that she is in now, so she never really thought it was a viable option. Now, she hopes that young athletes are inspired, and see that there are a lot of educated women who know a lot about the sport and deserve to be there.

“We get into it for the same reason men get into it, just because we love it,” Stephenson said. “I just ask for the respect and let us show everybody that we deserve to be here and that we're here to stay, but we also will earn the respect to stay here.”

“I really hope young girls see me at a ballpark and think that's something that they can do one day, because it certainly will be.”