By: Mike Still (@mikestill94)

Feature photo: Taylor (third from left) as part of Team Manitoba’s U16 staff this past summer.

The Winnipeg Wolfpack women’s tackle football team will have a new head coach steering the ship this season, in Aaron Taylor. 

The former WHSFL champ as a defensive back with Kelvin brings close to two decades of coaching experience with him, ranging all the way from the U16 provincial team to the junior football ranks with the Winnipeg Rifles. 

Taylor has been a coach for the provincial team on eight different occasions. He began with the U19 age group (now U18) but found his niche over the past few years with the U16 squad, including bringing home multiple silver medals as a part of well-respected head coach Jeff Ready’s defensive staff.  

“I found with U16, it’s more of the base builder,” he says. “You get to teach the mechanics and then prep the players to go up to U18 where they can learn more of the x’s and o’s.”

Taylor spent the 2013 season as the defensive backs coach for Dakota, moving onto Ryan Karhut’s Rifles staff the next year. It was in this position where he had the unique opportunity to teach the receivers the game from a defensive back’s perspective. 

The roster was loaded with top-level talent, including one of the best in program history in Kurt Goodrich and Niclas Bembenek – who both finished in the top three in receiving yards that year. Taylor was also responsible for helping current McMaster receiver Xander Tachinski make the transition from quarterback. 

“It was a good year. We had unreal athletes. I think it was just about working on the mental aspect of the game – I didn’t have to teach athleticism.”

The following year, Taylor took over as head coach of the East Side Eagles major junior program, leading the squad to an undefeated league championship. The program also received that year’s Coaching Staff of the Year award. 

When asked about his experience at the major junior level, Taylor was quick to bring up the mentorship program that he started at East Side, where he would bring all the younger Eagles athletes – from the cruncher to bantam levels – to practice so that his players could help coach them. 

“You take the little guys and tell them to run into that big guy as hard as you can and that little guy, he might be scared to hit, but once he hits that big guy and feels no pain and maybe knocks him over, then that changes their mindset in football going forward,” he says with a smile. 

“And for the older guys, they’re scared to coach the little kids, but then half an hour into the practice all of a sudden you see one of the guys has a little kid on his shoulder running around the field with him and has a bigger smile than the little kid. It kind of switches in their mind that maybe I can be a coach when I’m done playing football.”

Taylor then spent 2016-17 with the North Winnipeg Nomads as head coach and director of football operations, where he helped to revive their major junior team. His passion for the majors age group is rooted in his ability to help build a base for players who may want to play junior or university at some point. 

“Guys that weren’t ready for university or junior, I was trying to get them to come from high school and play a year or two of majors,” he says passionately. 

“You’re playing against that 22-year-old athlete that’s been in the gym for a while, and you know what, if you want to leave majors and play junior, go ahead. Go at 20 years old and play three years of junior. So I was trying to help players make that transition.”

Last year, Taylor worked behind the scenes supporting the Wolfpack. He had been introduced to the team during his time with the Nomads, as the squad used their field to practice. In the offseason, the program decided to make a head coaching change and he was approached to take over. 

“I thought, I have a big enough base of friends who are coaches, I’m going to see what I can do. It’s their offseason from high school and they can’t enough football as it is. So if I could bring them out in the winter/spring, I might be able to put something together.”

Taylor noted that one of the biggest challenges when he came in was recruiting enough players, as the Wolfpack had to fold their last two games last season due to not having enough numbers as a result of injuries. But it doesn’t sound like that will be a problem any longer, as the team immediately bought into what the head coach was selling. 

“We had a meeting right off the hop with all the veterans where I explained to them my coaching style and expectations. All I saw was smiles in the room from the 20 players. They were like yeah, you know what, we can make this happen. 

Really the players went out and found all the other players we have now. The veterans are really buying in and the next 2-3 months are going to be really exciting.”

Just under 50 players showed up to the team’s first group workout in early January, 32 of which are rookies to the Western Women’s Canadian Football League (WWCFL). Taylor says he’s excited for what this season holds, emphasizing that the x’s and o’s of the game will be a major priority. 

“What we want to do is max out the mental part of the game for them, and then the only thing they’re limited by is their physical ability, and you can work on that. If we can load their brain with knowing the game, that’s half the battle.”