CSC WCIP Goals

• Provide women intern coaches with ongoing mentorship from a qualified mentor coach, with a national or international coaching development opportunity, and enhanced professional development and learning opportunities
• Connect all participating women intern and mentor coaches in an ongoing supportive network
• Increase the number of high performance women coaches in Commonwealth sport in Canada

Intern Coach: Sierra Moores

“The CSC WCIP will build my experience as a coach and will have a positive impact on my role at UBC, where I hope to be for a long time.”

Sport: Swimming

Occupation: Sierra is in her first season as an assistant coach of the UBC Thunderbirds swim teams.

Mentor Coach: Tina Hoeben

Athletic Background: Sierra’s competitive career spanned 12 years, first with the Region of Waterloo Swim Club (RWSC) and then with the Warriors, the University of Waterloo (UW) varsity team. As well as the RWSC, she swam in summer club programs and “loved” both.

Education: Sierra, who grew up in Wingham, Ont., is completing a Master of Science in Kinesiology degree at the University of British Columbia (UBC). She graduated from the UW in 2019 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Honors Kinesiology and a minor in Human Nutrition.

Coach Education: Sierra has completed Level 2 of the National Coaching Certification Program (NCCP) and is working towards NCCP Level 3 – International Coaching Certification. She is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist.

Why a Coaching Career? Sierra has always loved learning and teaching and considers both to be interwoven. When she was 12, she helped with the CanSkate program at her local arena, an experience she describes as “always fun. There is a constructive part to sharing a skill and also the joy of laughing and having a good time with young people who are learning to share your love of an activity.”

Sierra never thought of coaching as a full-time career; rather, it was something she could do on the side during high school and her undergraduate years but not to make a living wage. Certainly, there were few women role models for her to emulate. However, the position of assistant varsity swim coach at UBC was an opportunity she could not pass up. “Being a coach is the most fun and challenging work I have ever had the privilege of doing.” She describes coaching as both an art and a science and adds that boredom is unlikely as she will always be learning and adapting. Being engaged mentally and always growing is important to Sierra.

Coaching Experience: Sierra worked as a strength and conditioning (S&C) undergraduate assistant at UW, primarily with football and rugby players. In 2018 she became the lead S&C with the university swim team, initially only in the gym. A few months into the season, the head swim coach, Jacky Beckford, invited Sierra to attend a few practices to observe how people move in the water since “those who are best in the gym are often the top performers in the pool.” At this point Sierra began to be intentional about integrating sport-specific knowledge with her learnings as a S&C coach.

At UBC, where her responsibilities include several national-level swimmers, Sierra mentors women athletes and coaches who are completing undergraduate and graduate degrees and aspire to coaching careers. She guides the coaches to develop their goals, coaching philosophies, and technical knowledge and provides practical opportunities to practice coaching.

Describing her coaches – Andrew Hopf, Beckford, and Derrick Schoof - as “huge influencers”, Sierra relishes working with athletes who are in the process of becoming faster swimmers, scholars, and adults. “It is so amazing and rewarding to walk with them and play a role in this process.”

In 2018-2019, Sierra was part of a diverse, culturally integrated team teaching ESL in an after-school program for more 250 children in rural Uganda (https://serge.org/). Her responsibilities included designing and implementing a preschool curriculum.

Importance of the CSC WCIP: Sierra considers the CSC WCIP to be an incredible opportunity to gain international experience since, she says, lack of experience is often why young women are overlooked for coaching positions. She welcomes the opportunity to be actively working towards expanding her coach portfolio.

After the CSC WCIP: “The CSC WCIP will build my experience as a coach and will have a positive impact on my role at UBC, where I hope to be for a long time.”