ICYMI - Newfoundland's Jaida Lee to make history at 2022 Canada Games

Right-hander Jaida Lee (St. John’s, Nfld.) will become the first female to play on a male baseball team at the Canada Summer Games when she suits up for Newfoundland & Labrador this summer. Photo: Premier Sports Academy

*Right-hander Jaida Lee did, indeed, make history at the Canada Summer Games yesterday. We thought we would resurrect this article written by Ryan Sweeney, of Premier Sports Academy, who trained the trailblazing pitcher. This article was originally published on January 23.

January 23, 2022

By Ryan Sweeney

Premier Sports Academy

Competing in the Canada Games is an achievement many young male ball players aspire to in Newfoundland.

The fact that this event only happens once every four years makes it all the more difficult to achieve.

For Jaida Lee (St. John’s, Nfld.), not only was she a young female trying to crack an all-male provincial team, but she is also two years younger than the majority of the other hopeful candidates.

When Lee was a young teenager, there were many conversations about how good she was, and how it was great to see her competing with the boys. But for some, there were questions of how long could she continue at that level.

When you see females competing with males, both science and speculation will be quoted to support the theory that girls mature and develop before boys, though at a certain point the physical development gap switches. As such, the rate of development slows down, boys start to get in the gym and lift weights, the game speeds up, which generally leads to boys outperforming girls across the board.

For Lee, none of these generalities have proven to hold true when it comes to her ability to pitch. When she started training with us at Premier Sports Academy in the spring of 2020, she was clocked at 65 to 67 mph. By the summer of 2021, under the guidance of our pitching coach Noah Anderson, she was up to 79 mph. That rate of growth is above the vast majority of people we've trained in that timespan, and is commensurate with the development of the elite level males who train with us.

How about in the gym?

Those who know her well, also know that her work ethic is second to none. She completes multiple private training sessions per week with our Director of Athlete Development, Dan Hearn, and on her own time. She regularly does 6 a.m. lifts before school. Pound-for-pound (5-foot-10, 160 pounds), she is as strong as just about any 15-to-16-year-old male athlete.

What about the speed of the game?

A lot of people already know she pitched the only win for Newfoundland’s 17U Team this summer at the 2021 Canadian Atlantic Championships. What most do not know is that this game was her first time pitching competitively all summer, as she spent most of May-July nursing and rehabbing a volleyball injury. That type of circumstance can negatively impact anyone's ability to compete at a high level.

Jaida has proven that being a female and having little competition leading up to the all-male tournament had zero impact on her ability to compete and adapt to the speed of the game at that level.

There is a lot of generalization that occurs when people talk about females playing with males in sport at any age, and it is unfortunate. While some competitive disadvantages may hold true, this attitude completely discounts females, and the qualities some may possess which allows them to cross competitive boundaries.

In Jaida's case, she is physically gifted, talented, hard-working, has a love for the game, a desire to get better, an extremely high IQ, and is the fiercest of competitors. When you put all of those attributes together, it is a recipe for success, regardless of being male or female.

We are extremely proud of Jaida and her accomplishment of being the first female ever selected to play baseball at the Canada Games.

Her path, however, is one that has been meticulously mapped out. Competing with the boys at the Canada Games is not her destination, but rather one part of her journey, with much yet to come. The honour of being selected to this team is self-validation that she is on the right path in the pursuit of her ultimate goal, which is to receive an athletic and academic scholarship to play D1 men's college baseball.

Don't believe it is possible?

That's fine. She's used to doubters. All I can say is, just keep watching!