Maya Turner just keeps putting the boots to the history books for Canadian university football.
The placekicker and punter with the Manitoba Bisons — who became the first woman to score in U Sports football during a pre-season game in 2022 — is now the first female captain in the century-long history of the Bisons football program.
“It’s really a huge honour and means a lot that they have that kind of respect for me, just as a player and a teammate, and that they see me as someone who’s a leader and has a place on this team regardless of gender,” Turner said.
The 24-year-old was named one of the team’s seven captains — representing the many different positions — at the end of training camp.
Head coach Stan Pierre announced the names to the team, “and yeah, my name was in there,” Turner said, still sounding a bit surprised.
“Yeah, I guess I wasn’t totally expecting it.”
Maya Turner was the first woman to play and score in a pre-season U Sports football game, then became the first to do it in a regular-season game, and later became the first female Canada West football all-star. (Mike Still/Manitoba Bisons Athletics)
Handing the specialist captaincy to Turner as she enters her senior year was “a pretty easy decision,” Pierre said.
“Maya is an exemplary student athlete. She does everything you ask of her, and she does it at a very high level,” he said.
“She’s a great student, she’s a great person, she works extremely hard. She doesn’t miss anything and she doesn’t make excuses for anything. She just does everything correct.
“I can’t think of a better mentor for our young players and a better example as a leader on our football team.”
It’s possible Turner’s the first to break that gender leadership barrier in any Canadian university football program.
“I don’t even know how many women have played U Sports [football] — I don’t think it’s five,” Pierre said.
“So I would venture a guess that there’s a really good possibility that she is.”
Bisons football head coach Stan Pierre says Turner is an exceptional player, period, with no asterisk required because she’s female. (University of Manitoba)
Turner first inscribed her name into U Sports history (the national governing body for Canadian university athletics) with her 2022 pre-season boot, but she fully carved it in the following year.
On Sept. 23, 2023, she became the first woman to play and score in a regular-season game, hitting a 21-yard field goal. Then she repeated that distance for the game-winning points in double overtime.
She finished the year with a 79 per cent accuracy mark — third-best percentage in Bison football’s century-old history.
One kick was a 48-yarder, the eighth-longest in the nation.
In 2024, her field goal percentage of 75 led the Canada West conference and she hit another one from 48 yards out. Her performance led to her being named a Canada West all-star — another first for women in U Sports football.
She kicked 76 per cent in 2025, including a 15-point contribution on Oct. 18 (four field goals and three extra points) to help the Bisons erase a 10-point deficit and win 33-31.
Turner, who is from Maple Grove, Minn., about 15 kilometres northwest of Minneapolis, played soccer at Loyola University in Chicago before transitioning to kicker with its club football team.
She attended multiple kicking camps in the U.S. and reached out to hundreds of schools to see if any would consider adding her to their men’s football team.
“I was just super determined to play this sport at a high level. I knew that I had the abilities, and so I was confident that there would be someone who would be able to recognize that,” she said.
She was invited for a tryout with the Bisons and impressed enough to be offered a roster spot.
“Ever since I’ve been here, I think everyone’s done a really good job of just seeing me as football player first and trying to not have me being a woman impact anything,” Turner said.
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Pierre agreed, saying the attention Turner gets from outside the Bisons program is understandable, but within the team, she is beloved “not because she’s a female but because she’s a really good person and a really good player. For us, she’s just one of the players.
“It really doesn’t feel like anything all that peculiar.”
Still, her marks on history are directly linked to her gender, and Pierre hopes Turner has mowed a path for others to follow, though he acknowledged the gender barriers haven’t exactly been kicked down.
“I hope she loosened those barriers a little bit and that there is more opportunity. But I’m not naive,” he said.
“If there’s another female out there that is capable of doing it, I hope that it inspires her. But Maya is a special athlete and what she’s done isn’t easy.
“She’s exceptional to be good enough to compete at this level.”
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