{"id":87384,"date":"2013-12-19T09:11:31","date_gmt":"2013-12-19T14:11:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=87384"},"modified":"2014-01-07T10:37:52","modified_gmt":"2014-01-07T15:37:52","slug":"nancy-stevens-joins-winning-team-of-national-championship-coaches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2013\/12\/nancy-stevens-joins-winning-team-of-national-championship-coaches\/","title":{"rendered":"UConn’s Newest National Championship Coach"},"content":{"rendered":"

Update Jan. 7, 2014: Nancy Stevens has been named National Coach of the Year by the National Field Hockey Coaches Association in postseason awards announced yesterday. In December, she earned Regional Coach of the Year honors from the NFHCA.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"From<\/a>
From left, forward Anne Jeute ’14 (CLAS), goaltender Sarah Mansfield ’14 (CLAS), forward Marie Elena Bolles ’14 (NUR), and head coach Nancy Stevens, with the 2013 NCAA Championship trophy. (Keith Lucas for UConn)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With a Hall of Fame career in field hockey that includes having won championships as a player and as an assistant, as well as playing on the U.S. National Team in the World Cup, head coach Nancy Stevens has a perspective on winning a national championship.<\/p>\n

For her, leading the Huskies to the 2013 NCAA Championship \u2013 her first in 35 seasons as a head coach \u2013 was all about her student-athletes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe joy on the players\u2019 faces, that look, I\u2019ll never forget it. To me that was the most important thing,\u201d says Stevens of the Huskies\u2019 2-0 win over Duke on Nov. 24. \u201cTo share that moment with those 23 players on the field, the staff, and our support staff is the most validating part [of winning the championship] \u2013 to experience that joy for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the post-game news conference, two student-athletes from England who earned All-American recognition on the pitch, Sarah Mansfield \u201914 (CLAS) and Chloe Hunnable \u201915 (CLAS), expressed that joy to the media.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat better way to go out? It\u2019s just incredible,\u201d said Mansfield, the senior goalkeeper who earned her 30th career shutout and is the first Husky to be a four time All-American and only the fourth to be a three-time First Team selection. \u201cIt\u2019s not even real yet. It hasn\u2019t even sunk in. It\u2019s amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo get into the national final was the most exciting moment of my life,\u201d added Hunnable, a junior who scored a goal and had an assist in the championship game and is a Third Team All-America selection. \u201cTo now actually win it with my family over here, yeah, I\u2019m going to cry.\u201d<\/p>\n

The joy on the players\u2019 faces, that look, I\u2019ll never forget it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When reporters asked Stevens about winning her first championship, she quickly moved the discussion to her student-athletes: \u201cIt\u2019s about the players. I didn\u2019t make a pass. I didn\u2019t make a save. I didn\u2019t score. It\u2019s what I wanted for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back in Storrs, reflecting on the team\u2019s championship season, Stevens emphasized the collaborative effort of her coaching staff and \u201cthe team around the team\u201d who worked diligently to prepare the student-athletes.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoaching is a collaborative effort,\u201d she says. \u201cCheri Herr and Paul Caddy have been on my staff for 13 years and they are every bit a part of it, of course. So many people have contributed a great deal to us so that we can stand at the pinnacle of women\u2019s field hockey this season. We talk about the team around the team being just as important \u2013 the training, academic, medical, strength and conditioning, the facilities and operations people. It\u2019s a lot of people behind the scenes working very hard every day for us to be successful. I know all the head coaches feel that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

A winning team of UConn coaches<\/b><\/p>\n

In winning the 2013 championship, Stevens joins a number of other current and former UConn coaches who have won a national championship, including Diane Wright, a former teammate, who coached UConn to its first two field hockey titles in 1981 and 1985.<\/p>\n

The coaches who have brought NCAA championship trophies back to Storrs say that Stevens\u2019 winning the title simply adds to the great respect they already have for her and what she has accomplished over a career that has produced 20 NCAA Quarterfinal appearances, 42 First Team All-Americans, and eight players selected to the USA National Team. This year, she also became the all-time winningest coach in Division I field hockey history.<\/p>\n

\u201cNancy did not need any validation for her career,\u201d says head men\u2019s soccer coach Ray Reid, who led UConn to the 2000 NCAA Division I Championship. \u201cYou do it for the players and the University, but of course you feel something special when you win it. She\u2019s a great coach and an even better person. I\u2019m really excited for her and her team.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Even<\/a>
Even before her first national championship as head coach, Nancy Stevens was the all-time winningest coach in NCAA Division I field hockey history, with a career record of 562 wins. She is shown here with the 2012 team. (Steve Slade ’89 (SFA) for UConn)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe greatest tribute to her is she\u2019s had excellence over a long period of time, which I think is the greatest judge in sports,\u201d says Jim Calhoun, the Huskies’ Hall of Fame men\u2019s basketball head coach who won three NCAA championships before retiring last year. \u201cMost important, she stayed with it. She\u2019s been a phenomenal coach. I watched her work. She\u2019s had great teams. It\u2019s a reaffirmation that if you keep doing good things, it will happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adds Geno Auriemma, the Huskies\u2019 Hall of Fame women\u2019s basketball head coach who won his eighth national championship last April: \u201cWhen you\u2019ve done all those things like Nancy has, there comes a time when you sit back and say, if there\u2019s one thing I\u2019d like to have it\u2019s a national championship. Not that you need it. Coaches who, because they enjoy the process and enjoy the day-to-day interactions with their players and making them better, are the ones who last longer. That\u2019s the way I\u2019ve seen Nancy\u2019s career. She enjoys the process, she enjoys coaching, being on a college campus, and loves teaching the game. In the end, she talks always about the quality of kids she has, the kind of players she has. I think coaches like that do last a long time and do have the kids\u2019 best interests at heart. You want those coaches to get a championship.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next challenge<\/b><\/p>\n

Her coaching peers also say that winning a first national championship presents the possibility of another winning a second one, and beyond.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goals don\u2019t change. Your goal is to compete for it,\u201d says Stevens, who has taken nine teams to the NCAA Final Four. \u201cWinning is difficult, of course. But we\u2019ll continue to compete for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Graduating five seniors \u2013 including three All-Americans in Mansfield; National Player of the Year forward Marie Elena Bolles \u201914 (NUR); and forward Anne Jeute \u201914 (CLAS) \u2013 will provide yet another challenge for the 2014 season. However, Stevens will return a core of experienced younger veterans \u2013 five starters were either freshmen or sophomores \u2013 who have won a championship, including two of the Huskies\u2019 leading scorers in Hunnable and Second Team All-American midfielder Roisin Upton \u201916 (ED).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a strong rising junior class with several starters,\u201d Stevens says. \u201cRoisin is one of the best players in the country and a field general for us as a sophomore. She will be a tremendous leader for us. We have talent going forward, and returning players who understand that hard work will result in success.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nancy Stevens says for her, winning her first national championship as a head coach was all about the players and the staff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":87399,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[55],"class_list":["post-87384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-17 01:49:30","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87384"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87971,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87384\/revisions\/87971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/87399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87384"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=87384"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=87384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}