Olympian, academic, and author Jill Moffatt notes that over many years much has been written about the challenges facing women who aspire to pursue a career as a coach. Reviewing 25 years of insightful, provocative, and timely Journal articles, I am struck by how often we chronicled such women, including in my own early articles: In Their Own Voices: Women Coaches Raising a Family; Tales of Transition: From Star Athlete to Career Coach; and Staying The Course: Candid Observations of Women Coaches On The Trials And Tribulations Of Their Profession. 

In Why Female Athletes Decide to Become Coaches — or Not, Dr. Guylaine Demers called for “specific, practical measures. And one year later, Dr. Penny Werthner’s investigation reinforced why women should and must be at the forefront of high-performance coaching: Making the Case Coaching as a Viable Career Path for Women.

As recently as the October 2025 issue of the Journal, Séverine Tamborero wrote a compelling article entitled Assessing the Current State of Women Coaches in High-Performance Sport. Her conclusion: “… we must continue to challenge sport’s leadership culture, generate more and better positions for women coaches at the high-performance level, and overall create a healthy environment for women to succeed.”

And so the struggle continues. Adding an important new dimension to the discussion, Jill examines the particular situation of coaching mothers. Building on the Journal’s body of literature, she paints a disturbing picture of coaching mothers continuing to be constrained by “powerful assumptions” about ‘good motherhood.’ Her solution: … “small, actionable steps that can move culture forward without waiting for budgets, policies, or systems to be rebuilt.”

Canadian sport leaders: take heed! It is long past time to stop wasting this valuable resource. – Sheila Robertson, Journal Editor.

The views expressed in the articles of the Canadian Journal for Women in Coaching are those of the authors and do not reflect the policies of the Coaching Association of Canada.