By By Ryan McCord

Just in case Pride head field hockey coach Kathy DeAngelis needed another award to solidify her stature as an ambassador for collegiate women’s field hockey, her 100th career victory did the trick.

She recently joined a prime class of coaching counterparts here at the University who have reached the century mark. Women’s soccer head coach JoAnne Russell will retire with the chance to rack up 140 wins, while on the men’s side Richard Nuttall has 157 victories. Joe Gardi has rounded up 117 football victories with the Blue & Gold, and men’s head lacrosse coach John Danowski has been on the winning side 167 times. Head volleyball coach Fran Kalafer and softball skipper Bill Edwards are both part of an impressive 500-win club, with Kalafer winning her 600th earlier this year.

“One hundred wins are not gifts by opponents. It is an accomplishment engineered by good coaching and athletes who share in the coaches vision and will to succeed,” Pride sophomore Pemba Ramdoo said. “The momentous occasion of Coach DeAngelis’ 100th career win is a small reflection of the passion, hard work and dedication that has come to represent her coaching. Traits that make her continued success certain.”

Growing up in Lexington, Ma., DeAngelis discovered her passion for ice hockey at a young age.

“Wayne Gretzky was really one of the inspirational factors in my life,” she said. “I read his book and admired the way he was dedicated to ice hockey and dealt with challenges he faced on and off the ice.”

DeAngelis accomplished so much as a player at the University of Massachusetts that even Gretzky himself would be impressed. The abbreviation of her accomplishments includes becoming a three time All- American, two time All-Conference, a Final Four All-Tournament member and a Honda Broderick Award finalist for collegiate woman athlete of the year following her senior season.

While many of us remember 1992 for the “Dream Team” basketball team winning gold, Bill Clinton jogging to McDonald’s or Joey Buttafuoco’s famous tune-ups, DeAngelis will never forget the year for her abrupt transition from world class player to rookie head coach.

At the tender age of 23, she was making a whopping $4,000 to coach La Salle’s field hockey team to go along with her strength and conditioning duties. The program was working with only three scholarships and was below ground level.

After four years of bringing La Salle’s program to respectability, she took the head coaching job at Southwest Missouri State. DeAngelis inherited a roster of only 12 players and to make matters worse, her team had to go up against the likes of Stanford, Cal-Berkeley, Pacific and St. Louis.

“We actually had to play short one game against Stanford,” said DeAngelis, whose SMS team played for the conference title the year after she left for the Pride. “After six seasons of coaching, I hadn’t really experienced the feeling of coaching success until I came to Hofstra and it was frustrating in a way because the teams I built were winning after I moved on.”

In her eighth season at the University, DeAngelis is living proof that everything happens for a reason. Her coaching I.Q. continues to catch up to her majestic playing talents, hitting her stride as a motivator, recruiter and role model. The Pride has now reeled off five straight winning seasons and DeAngelis is certain the sky is the limit for her team.

“We bring pure excitement to every game we play with a relentless, never-give-up- attitude,” DeAngelis said. “I can truly say that if we play our game to match our talents, we can beat any team in the country.”

DeAngelis has found an abundance of talent in the West Indies, the Caribbean, Barbados and Trinidad, to name a few. Pointing out that next season should be “one of our best ever,” with an excellent chance of bringing in two more student athletes that will have an immediate impact towards the team’s success.

Though she was quick to point out while it is substantial to look toward the future, she also has the responsibilities of keeping her current young and inexperienced team focused on the task at hand.

“I cannot walk out to practice everyday as the same person,” DeAngelis said. “My job is to continue to motivate and challenge in different ways. Change is important, if you don’t change it becomes redundant and redundancy is boring. Of course, an exciting season combined with good weather and winning always helps.”

Although nobody knows if DeAngelis will be guiding the Pride 20 years from now, one thing is for certain-she will have left her mark as a leader, tireless worker and class act.

Certainly last but not least, she has put the program on the map and now has the talent and wins to prove it.