Field Hockey Assistants Help Grow A Dynasty

UConn’s Schulz, Caddy In Distinct Roles

STORRS – Cheri Schulz was in eighth grade when she found out she wasn’t going to be allowed to play soccer with the boys in high school because she was a girl. There was no girls soccer and all her friends played field hockey so she opted for that.

Meanwhile, in England, Paul Caddy wanted to go to rugby practice with his father and older brother, but at age 6, he was deemed too young. So he had to go to field hockey practice with his mother, who was a coach. He found he enjoyed being a goalkeeper — “Mainly because I liked to dress up in the equipment at that point,” he said. “Skateboard helmet, cricket pads, soccer goalkeeping gloves.”

Neither could foresee that they would one day be part of a field hockey dynasty at the University of Connecticut. In 2001, UConn’s Nancy Stevens hired Schulz and Caddy to be her assistants. In the last five years, they’ve helped the Huskies (5-0) win three NCAA championships and reach five Final Fours. Last year, UConn went undefeated (23-0). The Huskies are riding a 28-game win streak and are ranked No. 1 in the country.

On Sept. 16, Schulz, an assistant coach, and Caddy, the associate head coach, will be inducted into the Connecticut Field Hockey Hall of Fame, along with seven others, at the Aqua Turf Club.

“Paul and Cheri have been with me for 18 years, which is very unique in the college setting and I think our players have been huge beneficiaries of that continuity,” said Stevens, who is the winningest coach in the sport with 667 victories. “At UConn, this isn’t unusual because Chris Dailey’s been coaching with Geno [Auriemma] for over 30 years. [Soccer coach] Ray Reid’s longtime assistant (John Deeley) has been with Ray for [21] years. I think this is a place where coaching staffs do stay together.

“The three of us have different strengths we can bring to the program to help the players develop.”

Although it didn’t start off so well.

“Our first year here, we actually didn’t qualify for the Big East championship,” Caddy said. “It was the first time Nancy had ever been under .500 in her career. We didn’t go to the NCAA Tournament. I think she was probably going home at night, going, ‘I made a huge mistake. Cheri and Paul Caddy – what was I thinking?’”

He laughed.

“That season, we also had a couple key injuries … would we have been fantastic? We would have been better if a couple kids had been healthy. The joke of the year was, ‘Well, maybe the mailman can come coach our team because we’re not doing very well.’ That’s when we realized we had to work really hard, especially with the recruiting, to right the ship. The next year we won the Big East championship, went to the Sweet 16 or Elite 8. It’s kind of snowballed from there. Before we came here, Nancy was already doing that.”

Schulz was a four-sport athlete (field hockey, basketball, track, softball and she also swam in the summer) at Garden Spot High in New Holland, Pa. She was a goalkeeper at Syracuse, graduating in 1996. She was working at Providence as a part- time assistant (while working at Cumberland Farms and as a substitute teacher to make ends meet) when she heard about the UConn job. It was a full-time job with benefits.

“It was a no-brainer — Nancy being one of the winningest coaches even then,” Schulz said. “I got a lot of flak from my alumni teammates but the vote that mattered, [Syracuse coach] Kathleen Parker, said it was a great opportunity.”

Caddy played semi-pro cricket and field hockey at the second highest level in England and graduated from the University of Wales, Swansea in 1999. He came to UMass, helped out with the team there, figured out that he could stay in America and coach and was an assistant at Quinnipiac and Ohio State before he came to UConn.

“When I was at Ohio State, I questioned if this was something I really wanted to do because the environment wasn’t right,” Caddy said. “The environment here – we care for our athletes, we push them hard to be their best, but it should be a game you play because you enjoy it. My love for coaching came back.”

When the two first started, UConn had already been to two Final Fours with Stevens in 1998 and 1999. The Huskies would go to three more (2006, 2007, 2011) before the 2013 season. After a disappointing 5-0 loss to Old Dominion during the regular season, the Huskies regrouped and won their first NCAA title under Stevens and her assistants, beating Duke 2-0 in the final. They won in 2014 and again last year.

Caddy, who does a lot of the international recruiting now, works with the defense; Schulz operates what everybody calls “Goalie World.”

“It’s their own world,” Caddy said. “Goalkeepers are a little different. They’re a little off the wall.”

“We’re the smartest ones on the field — we’re the only ones padded from head to toe,” Schulz said.

“See, she lives in an imaginary world,” Caddy said.

Caddy is the video guy.

“I can look at a film and I’m not seeing the picture he’s seeing,” Schulz said. “He’s finding that one little thing they do over and over again. The tactical genius, as Nancy calls him.”

Most assistants in college field hockey programs are around for 4-5 years; Caddy and Schulz’s longevity stands out.

“Great coaches are great coaches because they bring in people, they trust them, they give them responsibility and they allow them to flourish,” Caddy said. “When we came in, there was mentorship but immediately from Day 1, [Stevens] gave us ownership in the program. There’s a reason why we’re still here.

“If you get the right people together, it becomes really powerful.”