By Desmond Bernal
Juniors Emma Mawn and Sophie Schreck decided to learn remotely when the decision was made that fall sports were canceled. For both of them, no field hockey felt like a piece of them was missing; they wanted to find a way to continue to be around what they loved so much.
What they decided to do was coach high school students.
“It is really fun to be around it [field hockey] because it kind of stinks not being around it,” Schreck said. “It is definitely nice [coaching] because I would go insane if I was not around field hockey or doing something.”
Schreck, from Madison, Connecticut, is the freshman coach for Daniel Hand High School where she graduated in 2018.
Schreck had a connection at Hand High School; her best friend’s mom, and her high school coach, Sue Leckey, is the varsity coach for the field hockey team.
“I am over their house a lot and I am best friends with three of her kids,” Schreck said. “I don’t remember what we were talking about but she threw out that ‘oh maybe you should coach the freshman team.’”
Coaching has allowed her to look at the game from a different perspective than when she is playing.
“It is kind of cool to break the game down in a different way because I’ve only been coached, so kind of falling down and looking at the basics of how we do things is kind of interesting,” Schreck said.
Schreck is able to use some of her skills and knowledge she has learned over the years and help fine-tune the athlete’s skills.
“It has been really beneficial for some of the girls because they started playing since the seventh grade, so they do not have some of the basic skills you would learn from a young age,” Schreck said.
Since Schreck is a college student, it allows her to have more of a connection with her athletes.
“Because I am younger than the other coaches and I can relate with the girls more - I’ve played much more recently, and I can recognize when it looks like they are getting frustrated, so I can kind of see that emotion in them and relate to it,” Schreck said.
Emma Mawn, a native of Harwich on the Cape, is the junior varsity coach of her alma mater, Monomoy Regional High School.
Mawn started to think about coaching for her high school when the athletic director at Monomoy Regional, Karen Guillemette, reached out to her about the opportunity.
“It is something I really love to do anyway, so I was really excited when she reached out to me,” Mawn said.
Mawn’s passion for coaching came when she helped with a club on the Cape called Cape Cod Field Hockey Club. She heard about the club going into her freshman year at Stonehill and received a connection with Courtney Cappallo, one of the founders of the club.
“She is just a really really amazing coach. I have learned so much from working with her. She first gave me my opportunity really to start coaching and get serious about coaching,” Mawn said.
Mawn is able to get support from both her coach at Stonehill and Courtney Cappallo when faced with challenges.
“I think that my coach now, Annie Hansbury, is always willing to help me if I am facing something that I don’t know how to handle as a coach yet - same with Courtney Cappallo, the coach of the club I work for down here,” Mawn said. “It has been really awesome to have strong resources if I run into something I didn’t know how to handle.”
While her career path remains unknown, Mawn sees coaching as a potential route in the future.
“In the future, coaching is definitely something I am interested in. I obviously don’t know really where my career path is going to lead, but coaching is something I always really enjoyed,” Mawn said.
“I would like to keep that open, and obviously this is something that is a really good experience if I ever wanted to look in that direction - I have been having a lot of fun.”
Photo courtesy of Sophie Schreck
Photo courtesy of Emma Mawn
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