Signa Butler BA’96 Hons’98
As a kid, Signa Butler BA’96 Hons’98 was an early and committed sports fan. She read the sports section of the newspaper from front to back and routinely begged her parents to let her stay up and watch Hockey Night in Canada. She was also the only girl talking sports in the schoolyard with all the guys.
“My ultimate choice of career was not a surprise to anyone who knew me back then,” laughs the CBC Sports play-by-play commentator, host, and writer. Her career spans 20 years, 12 Olympic Games, and a long stint as the national morning sports host. Today, Signa is one of the only women on the network who does play-by-play for a growing list of sports, including freestyle skiing, speed skating, diving, volleyball and soccer.
Growing up in Halifax in the 1980s and 1990s, Signa was always a multi-sport athlete. She played soccer and basketball and was a competitive gymnast, all before high school. When she started at St. Patrick’s High, she added indoor field hockey to the mix. For the next three years, she played soccer, basketball and field hockey at the varsity and provincial levels.
Upon graduation, Signa was recruited by several universities but chose Saint Mary’s because it was a school she was already super familiar with. Her parents, Richard and Christine, are both alumni. She’d grown up going to Saint Mary’s sports camps, and their whole family had attended countless Huskies games over the years.
While her goal was to play both soccer and basketball at University, she soon realized that her greater strength and her best potential lay in soccer. And she was lucky enough to have not one but three phenomenal coaches during her five years at Saint Mary’s.
Two of them—Linda Whitehead and Joanne Evans—were head coaches at a time when not many women were in that role. “They fought really hard for resources and equality in those early days,” says Signa, adding that their passion and dedication inspired a group of young women who were student-athletes.
Joanne Evans BSc’89 BEd ’90, head coach from 1995-1997, was similarly impressed with Signa. “She was not only an accomplished soccer player but an excellent team captain, leading with integrity and determination,” says Joanne, who had been a star Huskies soccer player herself. Calling her a “firecracker,” Joanne says Signa was a natural leader, full of the kind of spunk and personality that has made her a success at CBC Sports. “As a Saint Mary’s alumnae, I’m so proud to watch Signa advocate for women’s sports across Canada and around the world.”
A firecracker, indeed. During her time on the Huskies women’s soccer team, Signa received numerous awards and accolades. She was a four-time Atlantic University All-Star, AUS MVP, and a first-team All-Canadian in her fifth and final year.
In addition to making life-long friendships, she fondly remembers the team’s early morning runs at Point Pleasant, the sound of sneakers on the gravel paths as they sprinted up the hills of Halifax’s urban seaside park. And then there was the Nova Scotia weather during hurricane season when one side of the turf was a lake and the other was a wind tunnel that the ball got stuck in!
Signa credits Saint Mary’s and some of the legendary professors she had in both the English and Political Science departments with creating a foundation for future learning and growth. In fact, it was at Saint Mary’s where some of the building blocks toward her dream of being a sports broadcaster came together. She worked as a writer for the university’s student newspaper, the Journal, covering sports of all kinds, and in her fifth year, took on the role of Editor. She then applied to Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson), earning herself a Masters in Journalism.
Signa and her father Rick at the 2018 Homecoming Soccer Alumni Reunion
Signa marvels at how far female university sports, and women’s sports in general, have come in the 25 years since she graduated. “Being a female university athlete in the 1990s, you were largely invisible. You weren’t in newspapers, you didn’t have access to a lot of resources or the best field times, and you probably had to fundraise or pay for your uniform out of your own pocket,” she says. “We were thought of as lesser than everyone else. And I think I’ve taken that lesson and flipped it.”
In her current job, she uses her position to leverage the stories of women athletes, coaches and women’s teams. In her writing, she makes a point of highlighting the women’s side of sport, often choosing an athlete or a sport that is a little lesser known and sending a little airtime their way. “These women deserve to be in the headlines as much as anyone else.”
She’s especially excited these days about the Canadian Women’s Volleyball team who have a female head coach—the only female head coach in the top 30 nations in the world—and who seem poised to qualify for the Paris Olympic Games this summer.
To say that Signa loves her job is a massive understatement. She feels grateful to have made her dream of becoming a sports commentator come true and has a piece of advice for other young women coming up in sports. It’s something she wishes she’d been able to tell herself during her own university sports career:
“You belong here. You deserve to be here.”
Join Saint Mary’s Alumni in celebrating the 50th anniversary of women in varsity sport at Homecoming this October.