Mr. Andrew Dickson smiles on the baseball field.
Mr. Will Morris, new Head Coach of Girls’ Varsity Golf.
This season, Choate welcomed two new spring sport coaches. Assistant Head of Athletics Mr. Andrew Dickson, who arrived on campus this fall, is the Head Coach of Boys’ Varsity Baseball. Long-time Chemistry teacher Mr. Will Morris is taking on the role of Girls’ Varsity Golf Coach.
Before coming to Choate, Mr. Dickson was the assistant baseball coach at Yale University. Prior to that, he played baseball at a junior college and coached at other colleges, including Northwestern University and Lafayette College.
Mr. Dickson said that his goals for the team are improving every week and always playing as hard in practices as in games. He hopes to find success with the values of “discipline, excellence, belief, and toughness.” With this in mind, the team can “[continue] to find ways to get better every day,” he said.
Mac Cady ’23, one of the Boys’ Varsity Baseball co-captains, described Mr. Dickson as “very dialed in” and always ensuring that everyone is “prepared in an actual game situation.” Cady is excited about the new energy and ambition that Mr. Dickson has brought to the program and admires his acknowledgement of the needs of the junior varsity baseball team, which he recognizes as the future of the baseball program.
Mr. Dickson’s most central objective is for his players to achieve their individual goals. With his college connections, Mr. Dickson wants to be a resource for players hoping to continue their baseball careers in college. Unlike at Yale, coaching at Choate allows Mr. Dickson to make “a larger impact on players’ development” early on, and he appreciates the players’ “eagerness to learn.”
Although Girls’ Varsity Golf Coach Mr. Morris is new to the realm of coaching golf, he is a life-long golfer and has had coaching experience at Choate as Head Coach of Boys’ Varsity Squash. Together with Assistant Golf Coach and Humanities teacher Ms. Amy Salot, Mr. Morris is helping implement traditions and practices to keep the program “sustainable.”
Because golf is one of the smallest and newest programs on campus, Mr. Morris hopes for it to be a “developmental program,” meaning players should feel comfortable coming in without much experience and still find success coming out.
Mr. Morris also emphasizes the importance of “sportsmanship” and “the rules of the game” in a sport where etiquette is key. Girls’ Varsity Golf Captain Cassatt Boatwright ’24 appreciates how much time Mr. Morris dedicates to helping players learn the rules, saying he makes them play “correctly and honestly.” Boatwright added, “He’s really pushing us to be used to competition, so that when we have our matches, we are calm and confident with our skills.”
Both Mr. Dickson and Mr. Morris are successfully contributing to their respective programs and enriching Choate’s athletic environment. “I think the Girls’ Varsity Golf program is going to show a lot of progress over the course of the season because of [Mr. Morris’s] new practice plans and strategies, both for helping us with our swing and also with our mental game,” Boatwright shared.
As Mr. Dickson and Mr. Morris begin new chapters within the baseball and golf programs, students and faculty wish both them and their athletes all the best.
