Her coaching career at Western University started as a “fluke.”

Now after giving almost half her life to coaching and teaching young women how to play and live, Natascha Wesch is stepping down as head coach of the Mustangs women’s rugby team to focus on teaching another young girl the same thing.

“I know what I do is good and I know what I do is important. It makes a difference,” Wesch said. “I’m not 25 anymore and there’s more than just me in my life. I have a husband. I have a daughter (who’s 10). I’m spending 80 hours a week teaching other people’s daughters how to be great people. Now I’d like to spend some of that time teaching my own daughter how to be a great person.”

Wesch leaves as big a footprint as any coach at Western.

She came to the program when she was 23, the first year women’s rugby became a part of Ontario university competitions.

Wesch has played and coached internationally with Canada. She coached the Mustangs to back-to-back CIS championships in 2004 and 2005, CIS silver medals in 2008 and 2009 and bronze in 2014. She helped bring Western the CIS women’s rugby championship tournament in 2006 and 2007. Under Wesch, the Mustangs captured 15 OUA medals, including four OUA championships.

She won the CIS coach of the year award and was a three-time OUA coach of the year.

It’s an incredible resume when you consider when Wesch came to Western it was just to play and finish her Master’s degree.

“It was a fluke that I started coaching here,” she said. “I was on the national team. They told me they were going to have a rugby team playing for the first time in the (OUA.) They said ‘We need a coach and we hear you are on the national team, would you like to coach?’ I was like “Aahhh, I just came here to play but sure, I’ll coach.’

“I was coming to do my masters and this was only going to be a pit stop on the journey of my life.”

It was a bold move for someone who was already juggling a lot of things.

“It could be a flaw if you want to look at it that way. I don’t say no to a whole lot of stuff,” Wesch said. “It wasn’t like I was thinking ‘I’m going to create the best rugby program on the planet.’ I just thought how do I create what I was offered as an athlete that made things good things for me? If I’m here and I get an opportunity to create this lets make it the best . . . and give these athletes the best opportunity they can have.”

John Weller, an assistant coach with Wesch, will take over as head coach. Derek Daypuck, a former Canadian national team standout with both the 15s and 7s will remain as an assistant.

At 45, Wesch still has a great deal to offer. But as a successful sports psychologist and given her desire to spend more time with her family, she felt the time was right to step away.

She called it a “super tough decision.”

“The way I approach life in general, my life in general, I do things full-on with complete passion, 100 per cent. I dedicate everything I have to whatever I do,” Wesch said. “There comes a point where you don’t lose the passion but you are like “yeah, I’m kind of tired.’ It’s like sprinting for 22 years and then going, ‘whew I need a break.’

“I spent a lot of time doing schooling, teaching. I built a private practice in sports psychology and want to develop that. I’m still in the business of coaching it’s just focusing on the psychological aspect. I use all of my experiences as a coach, as an athlete, as an administrator to help other athletes become the best they can be.”

Then there are the things that really count that Wesch is finally going to get to do.

“My focus is spending time with my family, my daughter,” she said. “My coaching’s not over. I now get to move on to much bigger and much more important things like coaching mini-rugby in the summer and girls’ hockey and that kind of stuff.”