Winning a national coaching award gave Vernon’s Michelle Webster cause for reflection.
It was as if the longtime softball player and coach was stepping into the batter’s box for the final time of what had been a tremendous career. One foot in the box, the other outside. Taking a look around at her teammates, the opposition, the fans in the stands, the beauty of the green grass in the outfield.
Then she steps in the box and belts the pitched ball 260 feet over the centre-field wall.
Webster, 41, received a 2025 National Indigenous Coaching Award from the Aboriginal Sports Circle (ASC), Canada’s national voice for Aboriginal sport, physical activity and recreation bringing together the interests of First Nations, Inuit & Métis peoples.
“Michelle is a coach whose passion, leadership, and dedication have left a lasting mark on athletes and fellow coaches alike,” said ASC. “She consistently demonstrated a strong commitment to her ongoing development as a coach, while also serving as a leader and mentor to others on the same path.”
Webster – a member of Namgis First Nation, near Alert Bay on the northern tip of Vancouver Island, on her dad’s side – grew up in Vernon playing multiple sports like volleyball, basketball, and her favourite, softball, in the Vernon Minor Softball ranks. She was a catcher.
She loved the game so much she would play in Sicamous or anywhere in the Okanagan that had a team and needed a catcher.
Webster graduated from Fulton Secondary School in 2002, and went to the University of Lethbridge to play in the early days of the Western Collegiate Softball Association. She would transfer after a couple of years to Kansas Wesleyan University, an NAIA school in Salina, Kan., and played out her college eligibility, graduating with a Masters of Business Administration with an emphasis on sports management.
The coaching bug actually bit Webster before she graduated high school.
“I think it probably kind of started locally here,” said Webster, who lives in Vernon but commutes to Kelowna where she is the executive director for Pacific Sports Okanagan. “So I was a coach for like, I think it was a Grade 8 boys volleyball team, in high school, and I coached basketball in high school too.”
Once she graduated from Kansas Wesleyan, Webster did some coaching for nearly three years stateside, then returned to the North Okanagan and began working with the Splatsin First Nation near Enderby. That’s when she got introduced to ISPARC – Indigenous Sport Physical Activity and Recreation Council, the recognized sport body member for B.C. in the ASC – and the North American Indigenous Games, which was the next rung in her coaching ladder.
“I applied to coach for the 2014 (North American Indigenous) Games, and was selected to the position,” said Webster. “That’s probably the thing that got me back into getting out on the field and coaching again.”
From that moment, in her own words, it was Petal to the Metal for Webster’s coaching career.
Her impact, said ASC, “stretches from grassroots programs to the international stage.”
Webster is currently an assistant coach with Team Canada’s U15 girls softball squad and a Pool Coach for U18, attending the World Qualifiers in Mexico and the 2025 World Championships in Italy, where Canada finished seventh.
“I was so incredibly honoured to have the opportunity to work with those kiddos, and that program just in general, and some pretty amazing coaches as well,” said Webster. “So yeah, it’s obviously the dream to get to represent your country on the field of play in the sport that you love.”
She has also coached with Team BC at the Canada Summer Games and the North American Indigenous Games, earning multiple medals and national recognition, including Softball BC Coach of the Year and the City of Kelowna Sport Hero Award.
Webster was with the UBC Okanagan Heat’s softball coaching staff since the program’s inception in 2019. The Heat won the Canadian Collegiate Softball Association championship in 2021, and a bronze medal in 2022 with Webster as the associate head coach.
She stepped away from UBCO as the team’s head coach after the 2024 season, then watched as current Township of Spallumcheen chief administrative officer Doug Allin took over the Heat program, and led the school to its second national title in 2025.
“We had a pretty successful run there (UBCO) for sure,” said Webster. “I’m really proud of where that program has gotten and how competitive it’s been, and super proud of them for winning their second national championship in our program’s history.”
So what is it about coaching that drives Webster? She used her time reflecting to provide an answer.
Everything.
Playing and coaching softball, she said, has shaped her personality and her approach to life in general. Webster loves being a part of a team; contributing to that team; working with people. But the game, she added, has always been an incredible gift in her life.
“It’s given me amazing opportunities to meet people, to travel,” said Webster. “It’s taken me to my education. To be a part of creating a safe environment where young people can learn more about themselves and grow as individuals both as athletes and as human beings is a pretty special thing, and coaches get to be a part of that every day.
“That’s what softball was for me. And so I just kind of want to be a part of creating that space and that environment for you know, for future versions of kids like me, that needed that spot to really get themselves figured out.”
Asked if there was any coach that played a role in her rising up the coaching ranks, Webster pointed to a Canadian legend.
Lori Sippel is an associate head coach for the University of Nebraska women’s softball team. Sippel, 60, from Stratford, Ont., was a 16-year member of the Canadian national women’s team. She coached Canada to a fourth-place finish at the 2008 Beijing Olympics; played for Canada at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta; had her Softball Canada jersey retired in 1999; and was inducted into the Softball Canada Hall of Fame in 1993.
It was after a failed 2005 tryout with the National Team, coached by Sippel, that Webster was asked to stay behind by the Hall of Famer, travel with the club as a bullpen catcher, and help the team in any way she could.
“Having that experience with her and her coaching staff really kind of opened my eyes to what coaching could look like, and that’s kind of set the standard for who I’d like to be as a coach, and so that was an amazing experience,” said Webster. “It was also one of my first experiences working with a female head coach so that was pretty awesome as well. She recognized my passion for the game and gave me an opportunity to explore that a little bit further with the highest level of softball that our country was competing in.
“That experience with her, and that team, definitely shaped, my drive to continue coaching and my future goals in the sport for sure.”
Webster spent part of 2025 helping coach a club team in Kelowna Minor Softball. She is available for 2026.
“Anybody who wants me can call me,” laughed Webster. “I’m happy to go out to the field.”