Full Great Women Great Danes Interview Transcript
UAlbany's Great Women Great Danes is a new series that will be published during Women's History Month. The series will feature Great Danes, past and present, and celebrate the women of UAlbany.
Q: As a student-athlete, you were a successful lacrosse player at UAlbany, can you tell me about your experience?
A: I had a wonderful experience at UAlbany. I give all the credit to the coaching staff that I had. I had wonderful coaches that really advanced our team’s lacrosse IQ and just really advanced our skill level to compete at a high, Division I level. I had great teammates, all of which are still very close friends. It was four amazing years here that I cherish still to this day.
Q: You were on top of the conference throughout your career. First-team in 2011, second-team in 2010 (America East), IWLCA Division I Second-Team All-America in 2011, what does that success feel like?
A: You know, again, just going back to … I don’t think any of those are possible without my teammates. I had a really strong group of women that were beside me through all those wins and successes. Really it’s pretty cool but I can’t take all the credit because I was playing with some very phenomenal ladies out there as my teammates.
Q: You were the nation’s best feeder your senior year, leading Division I in assists and you led the conference in points. You said it a couple of times but what can you contribute your success to?
A: Again, to the coaches really making me understand the game and what I should be looking for as a feeder. But also really great teammates that made it easy for me, we had strong chemistry so I could always count on them knowing where to be, where they were going, and they were pretty automatic when I would feed it to them, putting it into the back of the net. Again, they made it a little easier on me for gaining all of those assists by making the hard catch and putting the ball away.
Q: You were the first UAlbany player to be nominated for the Tewaaraton Award. What is it and how does that make you feel?
A: The Tewaaraton Award is awarded to the nation’s top player. I was blown away and really, really honored to be considered amongst all those top players in the country at the time. It was very … just such an honor. I was very grateful to be mentioned amongst all those phenomenal women on the list.
Q: Can you talk a bit about your professional career?
A: I was a coach for the WPLL and a player competing at the PALA Games. It was 2019; we went to the PALA Games down in Florida, what a…just incredible experience to be competing against countries like Jamaica and Puerto Rico and just all these different countries across the world that we had competed in the tournament. It was a really cool experience to see their cultures and different styles of lacrosse. We were pretty successful in that tournament and it was just a lot of fun to play at that level and be involved in such a cool experience as the PALA Cup.
Q: You mentioned you have coached some professional teams, can you talk about that as well?
A: Yeah. Actually, Coach [Katie] Thomson and I coached in the WPLL, the Women’s Professional Lacrosse League and that was super cool. Just being around athletes that are the top across the country and the WPLL did a great job of creating a league for these professional athletes. We had a couple of games, it was a small tournament style, throughout the summer. It was just really an exciting experience playing in certain venues like Gillette Stadium. Being around those athletes was a lot of fun and really high-level lacrosse. It was a really memorable experience that I'll remember forever.
Q: How did the women around you help you to become the woman and athlete you are today?
A: I have been really fortunate, honestly, to be around really strong, passionate, driven women in all different areas of my life growing up. I am one of six, I have five sisters. Right there, my mom is kind of my rock. She’s raised six kids and I look up to her a lot. I have had a bunch of female coaches across all levels growing up and being involved in sports and being around such competitive, driven women really have pushed me to kind of have that mindset of when you are around strong women you are empowered to really feel like you can take on the world and do anything. I am fortunate that I grew up around such great, strong women throughout my life.
Q: You have been a coach since you graduated, what made you choose that path?
A: I have always wanted to be involved in sports somehow. I had it in my mind that I was going to go the P.E./gym teacher route, maybe coach some high school basketball or high school lacrosse. I got the opportunity right at the end of summer once I graduated, in 2011. Right in August, I got an opportunity to go to Farmville, Virginia to be an assistant coach at Longwood University and that is kind of when I got my feet wet at the college level of coaching and I haven’t left since. I am super grateful for that opportunity. I love going to work everyday, I love being out on the field with my players and watching them grow. It has been a … I have been at three different institutions, all three have been wonderful. I have learned a whole lot from my mentors at all of them.
Q: What do you like better, coaching or playing?
A: It's weird because we always talk about it, our staff, we all played and you get that same feeling on game day when you were a player and when you were a coach. It is really surreal, it is a cool feeling, you still get that like game-day feel. It is cool that you can kind of have that moment again where it is game-day and you get those feelings and excitement kind of runs through your body. It is a different feeling. I love … I still love playing, I hop into practice sometimes and play with the girls. There is something about coaching when you are seeing your team grow, your players grow and you watch them successful on the field and in games. You just see them grow as people too, off the field. It is a really special moment and special feeling as a coach. Hard to pick, they are both very similar.
Q: What does Women’s History Month mean to you?
A: I feel that it really dedicates and highlights that women are here, women are strong, women can do anything. I think that it is important to keep acknowledging successful women, keep acknowledging strong women, and women in general. I think that it is hard to put into words right now. I feel that it really highlights how it’s important that we are really highlighting women. It’s really a time to acknowledge and highlight and really make society aware of how strong and successful women are. I think the more that everybody talks about successful women and brings to light that women can do everything and anything, is really a moment that needs to be reoccurred. As a female, it is really empowering to see all those successful women being brought to light through Women's History Month and it definitely needs to happen more.
For more interviews from the Women's History Month #GreatWomenGreatDanes series, click here.
