{"id":490385,"date":"2026-02-21T17:48:31","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T17:48:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/490385\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T17:48:31","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T17:48:31","slug":"tanya-henderson-concerned-with-cfl-coaching-stagnation-believes-current-womens-program-ineffective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/490385\/","title":{"rendered":"Tanya Henderson concerned with CFL coaching stagnation, believes current women’s program ineffective"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Photo courtesy: Christian Bender\/CFL.<\/p>\n

Tanya Henderson has made peace with the end of her CFL career.<\/p>\n

The first full-time female coach in league history<\/a> spent the 2025 season on the outside looking in after her contract with the B.C. Lions wasn\u2019t renewed amid a head coaching change. It was her first brush with the brutal realities of professional football, and also potentially her last.<\/p>\n

While the 34-year-old won\u2019t completely close the door on a future return, she revealed to 3DownNation that she elected not to actively pursue other CFL jobs last year in order to put down roots in the Lower Mainland and focus on other aspects of the game she loves.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d be lying if I said it wasn\u2019t a challenging transition. In the early beginnings, I felt like I was letting people down,\u201d Henderson admitted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of people who are looking up to me, and there are a lot of people who see me being able to make all these changes. I just sat with what I had already done in this world and what I actually wanted to do. The big transition for me was recognizing whether I am doing this because I want to do it and this is the best thing for me, or am I doing it because other people are telling me I\u2019m good at it and other people are telling me it has a positive impact? At the end of the day, I want to do what I want to do in football on my terms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Henderson was hired by the Lions as a defensive assistant before the 2022 season, busting through the league\u2019s glass ceiling. The native of Forestburg, Alta., spent three seasons as part of Rick Campbell\u2019s staff and was later promoted to assistant defensive backs coach, contributing to a team that never failed to make the playoffs during her tenure.<\/p>\n

She describes her experience in the CFL as a positive one, praising the acceptance of players and colleagues, and considers herself fortunate to have stayed for as long as she did. The grind of professional coaching wasn\u2019t daunting, but ultimately, the thought of starting over as an assistant with a new franchise was no longer appealing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think one of the challenges of when I got into it and the way I got into it is I was coming into an entry-level position at 30. You\u2019re really just starting at the bottom,\u201d Henderson explained. \u201cBefore that, all of the other careers I had, I had responsibility. I was working my way to the top, so I had a lot of progression in other careers. It was really hard to go back down to the bottom. I\u2019m a full-grown adult now, and there are things I want to be able to do. That was where I found it was a little bit challenging and limiting in a way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things that was really important to me was to have some autonomy in what I do.\u00a0I\u2019ve spent 10, 11 years in the sport now, and a lot of it has been on other people\u2019s time, other people\u2019s ideas, and other people\u2019s schedules.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Henderson first arrived on the scene, there was hope that her hiring would usher in a new era for female coaches in Canada, catching the three-down league up to speed with some of the progress that had been made in the NFL. For a brief moment, it seemed as if that could be the case as Nadia Doucoure joined the Ottawa Redblacks in 2023 to become the second woman in a full-time coaching position<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to 2026, and the CFL had returned to square one. Neither woman was under contract last year, and no new female coaches have replaced them. The league continues to tout its annual Women in Football program<\/a>, which places one female intern with each franchise for training camp, but the results have been underwhelming for those on the coaching track.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat program as a whole, I wouldn\u2019t say is going to dramatically change the opportunities for females in football, short of that program. Had that been true to the extent that I think we would like it to be, there would be more females in the CFL now,\u201d Henderson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it comes down to it, me and Nadia were the two coaches \u2014 there are currently no female coaches in the CFL. There\u2019s some equipment people, there\u2019s administrators and all of that, but I don\u2019t think if we were to pull the numbers, there would be that shift.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her eyes, the reason why so few women have been hired out of the program isn\u2019t due to sexism. In fact, it has very little to do with gender at all. Instead, it comes down to what she has dubbed the \u201cCFL box of knowledge,\u201d the near-homogeneous lens through which coaches around the league view the game as a result of their shared experiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t actually think it\u2019s a female problem. There are extra barriers there, but I think from my experience and what I see, there are not a lot of new faces brought into the CFL. You have a lot of coaches and staff jumping from team to team. You have a lot of people who bring in their people, always surrounding yourself with the same people that you either played with or you grew up with. You\u2019re back in that box,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there being more women in the CFL is less about women wanting to be here or people wanting to hire women, and actually more about people not wanting to be uncomfortable by bringing people into the room with different opinions and thoughts and views.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forcing decision-makers to hire outside their comfort zones in an industry where jobs are constantly in jeopardy and entry-level opportunities are limited by the football operations cap<\/a> is a difficult task. However, Henderson believes that new voices and fresh perspectives spark innovation, which would in turn drive the growth that the league has long sought.<\/p>\n

During her tenure with the Lions, she often found herself frustrated with a negative public perception of the league and the stagnant thinking that played into it. For those content with the status quo, she has only one question.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow\u2019s that going for everyone right now?\u201d Henderson asked rhetorically. \u201cThere\u2019s some really great progression happening in this league, but there\u2019s also a lot of regression, and there\u2019s a lot of just coasting. I guess you could say everything\u2019s just fine, everything is good. Nothing is tragically wrong, but there\u2019s so much potential here. I just don\u2019t understand why we aren\u2019t doing better.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI found there was a lot of situations where I\u2019d be sitting there and I\u2019m like, \u2018Why are we doing it this way? This doesn\u2019t make any sense to me.\u2019 It was very obvious in my brain to do it another way, and then I would say that, people would be like, \u2018Oh, I never thought of that.\u2019 It\u2019s not even like it\u2019s a groundbreaking thing. It\u2019s just everyone kind of gets stuck in that box because you\u2019re just in such a small community, and the CFL is exactly that. There\u2019s very little coaching turnover, so there\u2019s not as much innovation and newness as I think the CFL could benefit from.\u201d<\/p>\n

One way or another, the league will have to change to maintain relevance in the modern era, and Henderson fears it will be the pain of falling behind that finally tips the scales. In the meantime, she\u2019s endeavouring to address some of the issues she saw from the outside.<\/p>\n

Last month, she launched Blitz and Bloom, a new podcast dedicated to telling CFL stories and advancing the cause of women in football<\/a>. The project began with a series of mini-episodes highlighting the various stages of her football journey and has since expanded to include feature-length interviews, beginning with a sit-down with veteran Lions defensive back T.J. Lee that dropped earlier this week<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was constantly frustrated that more people didn\u2019t know about these (players and coaches), and more people didn\u2019t hear their stories,\u201d she said of her motivation. \u201cThat\u2019s a big part that I really want to push and want to put more media out there around it.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Henderson\u2019s steps into the media space haven\u2019t compelled her to hang up the coaching whistle. She is spearheading the growth of women\u2019s tackle football in British Columbia, the only province without an existing league or division for girls. Over the last year, she has helped facilitate an inter-region showcase in Langley, an inter-provincial game against Alberta in Kelowna, and multiple skills camps for prospective players.<\/p>\n

In her opinion, growing the game at the grassroots level amongst women is the only way to ensure that there will be more female coaches in the years to come. Diversity doesn\u2019t trickle down from the top, but rather rises from the bottom.<\/p>\n

\u201cMe being (in the CFL) doesn\u2019t matter until everything changes underneath me, until there\u2019s more females coaching junior football, until there\u2019s more females coaching university football. You can offer all the positions at the top that you want, but until there\u2019s systemic change below and systemic opportunities below, you\u2019re not going to get the shift that you want,\u201d Henderson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy hope is that women get to make the decision of whether or not they want to pursue a career in football, not from a space of necessity and desperation in the sense that, \u2018Oh, well, this might be my one opportunity, so I should probably take it,\u2019 but to actually make that decision to knowingly go into it because that\u2019s what they want to pursue. I definitely want to see more women at (the CFL) level, but I know that in order for that to happen in a sustainable way, we need to see more women at all of the levels underneath.\u201d<\/p>\n

3DownNation\u2018s full sitdown with Tanya Henderson can be viewed below or listened to via your favoured podcast provider.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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