This past year, Keene State College has had significant coaching changes in men’s soccer, men and women’s cross country, softball and cheerleading. For athletes, a coaching change can cause mixed feelings of excitement and skepticism for the season ahead; uncertainty of what a new coach could bring to an already established team. Even coaches start out with challenges no matter how much experience they have.
Long time Assistant Men’s Soccer Coach Rick Scott took the head coach position this year after previous head coach Ron Butcher announced he was no longer coming back after 43 seasons with The Owls. In this case, the coaching transition was easy for most of the upperclassmen players who had Scott as an assistant, because they already knew him. But it was seeing him in the top position that made players really take him seriously.
“Normally the assistant coach is a little more buddy-buddy with the players and Coach [Scott] set himself apart as the leader,” junior Eddie Mercer, a forward on the team, said.
Mercer said that while Scott was still the assistant coach in previous seasons, once in a while he would run practices when Butcher wasn’t available. From this experience, the upperclassmen on the team had an idea of how their practices were going to look in the future. “Rick’s style of practice is more sharp and short—when we had Butch, practices used to go a little longer,” Mercer said.
Both Scott and Interim Head Softball Coach Carrah Fisk Hennessey are Keene State College alumni. Not only do both these coaches have great accolades beyond the campus, but also they have played on the same field as athletes, making a coaching connection that much stronger. “Every team is a new team … you never have the exact same players that you’ve had before. Year in, year out, every team is a new team. I think that challenge is what makes this job great. It’s what makes this job rewarding,” Coach Hennessey stated.
Although being named a head coach is a prestigious title, that is not why these people have accepted the jobs. Coaching is a job that goes beyond the person in charge; it’s a job that is for the athletes.
“When you are a coach, your job is not just about you. If you’re coaching well and the team is playing well, you do not need the spotlight—that is for the players—the student-athletes who are out there, working hard and taking advantage of the incredible privilege and responsibility that comes with representing your sport and your school,” Coach Hennessey stated.
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Just like Scott and Hennessey, the new men’s and women’s cross country coaches are also alumni. However, Ryan Widzgoski and Sarah Titus, the younger coaches, graduated in the past two years. Widzgoski and Titus have even competed with some of the athletes still on the team now.
Junior Cara Colotti explained the advantages of having a coach who’s closer in age.
“Our coaches are alumni and a lot of us looked up to them as runners and are really happy with our coaches right now,” Colotti said. She continued, “The alumni can run with us and are more active in work out and cheering for us when we’re running.” Acting Head Coach Sarah Titus said that there are both good and bad things about being close in age to the team.
“I think that I can be a little more perceptive of their needs of what their going through because I was there not that long ago. I have a good feeling of the program and can make the connections and give them solid examples. So I think that is good, since I am closer in age, I do try to establish a line of respect. I don’t treat them like children because they aren’t that much younger than me. So I’m making sure we establish that line. I’ll hear you but you have to hear me too,” Titus said. “Since they are closer to our age, it’s easy to think, ‘What do they know?’” Colotti said.
Although cross country is seen as a team sport, each individual person has a different way of training for his or her body and sometimes personality conflicts can arise from coaching-style differences, making athletes reluctant to listen.
However, Titus said one of the changes she made to the team was making sure that everyone was organized and training with another teammate.
“I’m also making sure that we’re respecting peoples time, and making sure we all show up on time because in the past its been a lot looser so that was a big change that the team had to adjust to,” Titus said. Even though the team had already bonded with each other before Titus and Widzgoski joined the team Colotti said the coaching change never changed the team’s goals or mindsets.
“We started the season with the same goal that we have now,” Colotti said.
Similar to the cross country runners, team bonding is a huge part of having a successful cheerleading team. With a tumultuous coaching past, new Head Coach Chris Fecteau is moving forward and bringing the team closer to each other and the community. “I was really happy when we found out Chris was going to be our coach. We met him last year and we knew how serious he was about coaching and we needed that after last year,” sophomore cheerleader Kylie Coffey said.
“Last year there were so many cliques on the team and now I feel like we are communicating with each other a lot more,” Sophomore Cheerleader Bianca Tauro said. Since Fecteau has been head of the team, the girls go bowling and out to dinner with each other as well as participating in community events like a fall festival in Langdon, N.H. and an upcoming cancer walk in Peterborough, N.H. “I feel like she [Nicole Dick, the previous coach] didn’t have enough effort,” Tauro said.
“With our team it’s really hard to trust a coach after losing two in one year, so giving Chris respect is huge,” Coffey said. Tauro continued to say that she feels much safer as a flyer with Fecteau as coach, “I just feel like he knows what he’s doing, especially in stunting. He’s worked at gyms, he’s been on teams and he’s worked with a lot of other teams.” Fecteau agreed that it was his past experience that helped him not only get the job but get the respect from the team. Before moving to the Keene area he coached at all-star cheer gyms in Long Island, N.Y. He also did four summer programs with New England Cheerleaders Association and coached at Nassau Community College in N.Y. He now is in his third season with Northern Lights, a competition team in Keene, and is also going into his fourth football season at Fall Mountain Regional High school. “I’ve established that I’m here to build things and I’ve proved that I stick around,” Fecteau said.
Fecteau, like the other coaches has many goals for the season ahead, one is to eventually establish veterans and rookies on the team. However, he said that now he’s still a rookie too.
Kendall Pope can be contacted at kpope@keene-equinox.com
