A Mission woman is making history south of the border in the National Lacrosse League.
Shonly Wallace joined the Albany Firewolves organization on Tuesday (Oct. 22), becoming the first woman scout in the history of the NLL.
"That I get to be ... the first female to do this – it's an honour,” Wallace said.
Wallace played at the University of Albany and was a graduate assistant coach with the team last year. She also became familiar with the Firewolves organization by going to games and getting to know the staff.
Albany head coach and general manager Glenn Clark said in a news release that Wallace has a unique passion for lacrosse and high-end experience in the indoor and outdoor game.
“Her recent participation in the World Indoor Championships has her well positioned to support our staff as our NCAA Scout.”
Clark helped mentor Wallace as she got know the Firewolves staff.
“[Coach Clark] knew I wanted to have a career in coaching. This is something I kind of always wanted to do is work in the NLL and so they thought it would be a great opportunity with the relationship that has been built there,” Wallace said.
Scouting isn’t the only duty on Wallace’s docket. She also serves as an assistant coach for the women’s lacrosse team at Central Michigan University and still plays as well.
"My life is an awful lot of lacrosse but it kind of just keeps me focused,” she said.
For Wallace, playing for the Canadian national team has been a great honour and the highlight of her career to date. She recently competed for the Canadian National Team in the first-ever Women’s World Box Lacrosse Championship in Utica, NY where she helped the team to a silver medal.
“Lacrosse has become my life and I'm very grateful to have a career with it – it's just the path that I've been led down," Wallace said. "I think it's a pretty cool thing that I get to do something that I love every day and the fact that I get to still play is awesome."
However, Wallace said you can only play for so long and getting opportunities in coaching and scouting is valuable.
Wallace was born in Richmond and her family moved to Mission when she was 12. She played box lacrosse in Mission and graduated from Mission Secondary School.
In the future, Wallace strives to reach the highest level she can.
“That's something that's cool with the growth of women's sports is there are so many more opportunities like something like this – getting to be scouting the NLL is [something that] hasn't happened before," she said.
