Softball coach Allison McMillan adds to golden legacy at the Canada Games

If you want to fix your car, call a mechanic. If you want to fix a leak, call a plumber.

If you want to win softball gold at the Canada Games, call Allison McMillan.

McMillan, head coach for Team BC’s gold-medal winning women’s softball squad, has been to the Canada Games four times and never won anything but gold. She won gold as an athlete at the 1997 Canada Summer Games and returned as a coach three times since, serving as apprentice coach in 2017, assistant coach in 2022, and now as head coach.

McMillan may be the common denominator but, when it comes to Team BC’s gold medal performance in St. John’s, she highlights the character and will to win of the players.  

“These girls are driven internally,” she said. “I think they did a lot of the driving, and the focus was that they’ve been in these kinds of situations before. With very little guidance, they knew how to manage themselves; they knew how to prepare themselves.

“We just got the honour of coaching them and bringing them all together.”

---

British Columbia’s gold medal in St. John’s is the province’s sixth straight and seventh in eight years. So how does Team BC consistently manage to stay at the top of the podium?

“We have a lot of support in our softball community,” McMillan said. “It comes right from the women’s national team coach, Kaylee Rafter.  Every year she’s putting on high-performance coaching courses throughout the winter for coaches like us. We’re able to start to implement these on our, on these Team BCs, on our club teams, and really grow the sport that way and grow the coaching path.”

---

McMillan also credited the experience and presence of her coaching staff. Team BC is one of two team to bring an all-female coaching staff alongside the Yukon. Joining McMillan on the staff are assistant coach Michelle Webster, apprentice coach Kaitlyn Cameron, and manager Jenn McKellar.  

McMillan is a fitting mentor for Cameron, having gone to the games as an apprentice in 2017.

“Going through the women in coaching program opened a lot of doors for me,” said McMillan. “It helped me get all my coaching accreditation and become certified, and I got to interact with female coaches across the country in different sports, getting a lot of different perspectives. It builds a community.”

The apprentice program also brought her back to Team BC for the first time in 20 years. For McMillan, there’s nothing quite like the Canada Games experience.

“I think for me, [playing in the Canada Games] was probably one of the most exciting and most cherished moments I had as an athlete,” she said. “It really gave me a lot of confidence personally and even just to move on and excel professionally and get into coaching.

“You can’t duplicate it at a national championship, where all you have is one sport.”

---

Although she attended the Canada Games in softball, McMillan has high-level experience in multiple sports. While studying at the University of British Columbia, she made the varsity basketball team as a walk-on and stayed for three years before deciding she needed a change. She proceeded to walk on to UBC’s varsity rugby team.

Even as a varsity athlete in two different sports, McMillan made time to meet with coaches once a month to train in softball. It was while she was playing varsity basketball that she was tapped to be part of Team BC for the 1997 Canada Games in Brandon, Manitoba.

Since her experience in Brandon, the Canada Games have gone through a big transformation. For her, the difference is night and day.

“The atmosphere is way better now,” she said. “We didn’t get as much of the multi-sport experience that athletes get now—to get to go and cheer their team on in other sports.”

It doesn’t hurt that the venues are much closer in St. John’s, allowing Team BC athletes to get out to support other teams and soak up the multi-sport experience. But no matter where the Games are held, McMillan sees the event as a can’t-miss experience.  

“It’s a pretty incredible experience, being part of a broader Team BC and knowing that this is a pathway to the Pan American and Olympic Games.

“There’s nothing like it.”