Coach Spotlight: Eileen McEnery

Coaching Varsity Field Hockey is an amazingly rewarding experience. This question forced me to spend a great deal of time reflecting on the highs and lows over the past decade and a half. While the program has experienced postseason successes, shore conference tournament play,  above .500 season records, it has also survived shutout after shutout, career ending injuries, and devastating illnesses. My goal as a coach is not defined by the number of wins or losses. It’s in the development of the team as a whole. Every August, I welcome 15-20 young ladies, each with their own unique strengths and weaknesses. As they sacrifice and persevere, those weaknesses are developed and strengths are calibrated to find harmony with one another on the field.  When my athletes recognize a whole is greater than the individual parts, amazing work can be accomplished. Therefore, my fondest memory of coaching at Ranney was an intense Prep B State playoff game verses Princeton Day School. The bleachers reached capacity as we hosted the quarterfinal game amid a particularly fierce nor’easter. During the pregame huddle, my assistant coach and I held a ball of yarn in the middle. We executed a web of reflection exercise, to reiterate the value each individual player contributed to our program to help get us to where were were in that moment. The web we created in that huddle represented a connectedness within the team, the support we provide one another, and trust. Then we passed around scissors, each member of the team cutting a piece of the web, tying around their pony tails. This represented our own individual responsibilities out on the field but the importance of how we all remain part of the same team and must work together to create the web. After a scoreless half, the girls referenced the web during half-time, realizing they were not playing as effectively or efficiently as they could. They went out determined to defeat PDS as a team, not 14 individuals. Taking a 1-0 lead off a penalty stroke, Ranney held off pressure from PDS, and secured their place in the semi-final game. While we eventually lost to Morristown Beard School, that significant web exercise changed the culture of our program. From that day forward, the field hockey program embraced value of character, sportsmanship, and above all camaraderie.