Ms. Fran O’Donoghue is a well-known face around campus, filling many roles on campus. Starting in the fall of 2019, she will be filling a new position and stepping away from an old one. After more than 20 years, Ms. O’Donoghue will leave her role as Head Varsity Field Hockey Coach and will take on the new job of Girls’ Cross Country Assistant Coach. Ms. Grace McGee, who has been the Assistant Varsity Field Hockey Coach for the last four years, will be stepping up to fill the position of Head Coach.
Ms. O’Donoghue’s familiarity with field hockey led her to coach the team when she first arrived at Choate. “I started coaching because I loved the sport,” she said. “I played field hockey in college and lacrosse in college, and when I applied to Choate, they needed a varsity lacrosse coach and a JV field hockey coach, so that worked well for me. I just love sports. I love sports like crazy. I’ve been playing sports and been on teams since I could be on teams.”
During her career as Head Coach, Ms. O’Donoghue has accumulated 156 wins and 111 losses, but she has routinely prioritized the positivity and larger goals of the team over the scores. “Losing, while it’s not fun, is not the worst thing in the world. However, winning is great, but it’s not the only thing,” she said. “To me, having a great experience on a team is more important than winning.”
When asked how Ms. O’Donoghue has impacted the team, Ms. McGee said, “It’s hard to quantify. There are so many ways in which she has impacted the program, and certainly the girls.” She described Ms. O’Donoghue as an “extremely positive person and someone who has shown a lot of mental toughness, persistence, grit, and athleticism. And, she is inspiring in a lot of ways and has been able to relay some of those tactics.”
Her players appreciate her coaching and the improvement in their abilities because of her positivity and commitment to the team. “She took it seriously and made it her priority to make each one of us better in our own way,” said Claire Gavin ’21, a member of Varsity Field Hockey this year. “We’re all at different levels but she’s still helpful to each and everyone of us.”
For Ms. O’Donoghue, some of the most important qualities for her players to have are sportsmanship, respect, and the ability to better understand themselves. She said, “I wanted students to learn how to self-evaluate, self-assess, and figure out how they can contribute to the team, how they can grow as a person in their own right, but also to recognize when you’re on a team, the team is as valuable as any person, and a good team is more valuable than the sum of the individual people.”
Most of all, Ms. O’Donoghue urged her players to maintain a positive outlook through the successes and defeats. “The most important thing to me is that people enjoy the sport and don’t take the sport or themselves too seriously and don’t put too much pressure on themselves to have a certain success level,” she said. “I don’t think the only way to measure success is through wins and losses — keeping a good eye and perspective on things [is also] extremely important.”
She also used her energy and positivity to create a strong team dynamic on Varsity Field Hockey. “There’s lots of energy and a lot of team bonding, and the team feels very unified; the dynamic is very close-knit. [The team is a] positive group of people who work hard to bring something from field hockey to their next sport and bring something from their next sport back to field hockey,” said Ms. O’Donoghue.
After serving as the team’s assistant coach, Ms. McGee will step into the role of Head Coach. She has enjoyed the opportunity to learn from Ms. O’Donoghue and is excited for the new role. “The transition is definitely bittersweet,” Ms. McGee said. “At the same time, it’s a great opportunity to reflect on all the great things that have happened in the past and think really carefully about what will happen in the future, [but] it’s [also] an exciting time for the program and for her.”
Ms. McGee took many lessons about how to approach coaching from Ms. O’Donoghue that she will continue to use with the team. “The other thing which we share is the idea of really understanding and appreciating a girls sport,” she said. Ms. McGee added that Choate currently does not have a boys field hockey team, and this allows girls on the field hockey team to appreciate their roles not only as athletes or student-athletes, but as strong female athletes.
Although Ms. O’Donoghue will no longer be a part of the field hockey team, she leaves behind her a strong legacy of teamwork and a network of inspiring women who have enjoyed the opportunity to play for her at Choate. She will miss coaching the team but is also looking forward to a new opportunity. “I loved coaching [Varsity Field Hockey] and I’m going to miss it like crazy, but one of things I value is trying new things and challenging oneself. I’ve worked hard and challenged myself, and now is a good time to try a new challenge. I’m going to be a rookie coach!”
