The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
End of an era
UConn’s record-setting coach Stevens announces retirement
The numbers retiring UConn field hockey coach Nancy Stevens put together during her legendary run with the Huskies was barely mentioned when she informed her stunned players of her decision in a Friday afternoon video conference call and met with the media through the same platform a couple of hours later.
Stevens — who announced that she would be staying with the UConn program as a volunteer assistant as Paul Caddy is promoted from associate head coach to Stevens’ replacement as the Huskies’
head coach — won more games than any other NCAA field hockey coach between her stints at Franklin & Marshall, Northwestern and UConn. She led the Huskies to 10 Final Fours and national titles in 2013, 2014 and 2017. Her retirement will become official Sept. 1.
“I’m at peace with the decision,” Stevens said. “I think it’s the right time and I feel I have the full support of our team, my administration and Paul and [UConn assistant coach] Cheri [Schulz].”
Stevens cited COVID-19 and the fact that there will be no field hockey season in the fall for UConn as factors in her decision to step away from her head coaching responsibilities now.
Stevens admitted there was a sense of shock among her players when she informed them of her decision but once she let them know that Caddy would be head coach and that she would remain as a volunteer assistant, the collective sense of anxiety quickly subsided.
“I’ve had a number of my players call me today after the release, my national champions, my captains,” Stevens said. “I’ve gotten a lot of emails, texts and I’ve been able to speak with some of them before the announcement came out and that is the most important thing, those relationships and those memories that we share. As we tell our national champions, we walk through history together.
“Boy, don’t we have to sit back sometimes and think about how lucky we are and the fact that we’ve been able to go to 10 Final Fours and win the three national championships? That’s enough, so I didn’t really need another hurrah. I was disappointed that our season was canceled for our student-athletes, for our players and we had such a good team but we’re going to be hopeful that there is a spring
season. It will look a lot different but we’re going to focus on that.”
Stevens arrived at UConn in 1990 and watched the men’s and women’s basketball and men’s soccer programs combine for 16 national titles to go with the three her teams won.
“This is a place I knew we could win national championships,” said Stevens, who won 520 of her NCAA-record 700 games with the Huskies. “When I got here, we had a grass field, so the rest of Division I had moved onto AstroTurf. I thought if we got an AstroTurf field at UConn, we would take off, but it took five years. I have great memories because we have players who chose to come play for us and play on a grass field.
“One of those players was Kristen Kelly, the No. 1 player in the country. She believed in what we were doing and came here. Someone like that is a cornerstone for the rest of your recruiting because recruits can say ‘Kristen chose to go there, I’ll go there.’ It’s interesting how certain players in different parts of your career have a huge impact on the success of your career. The best memories are the relationships with our players, and they believe in us and we believe in them.”
Stevens has heard from fellow coaches and so many of her former players since the news began to spread.
“It’s like weddings and funerals,” Stevens said. “You’re going to see people and their families, dear friends, so this is one of those occasions, so it’s a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with a lot of my former players and my colleagues that we don’t always reach out [to] all the time.”