NANCY WILLIAMS: GETTING IT

By Al Mattei
Founder, TopOfTheCircle.com

The vision most people have of Nancy Williams is the stern woman on the sidelines of field hockey games at West Long Branch Shore Regional (N.J.). For four decades, she has not only molded young women into field hockey players and citizens, she has also broken new ground for women's athletics by demanding -- and receiving -- comparable facilities and privileges from the district's athletic department.

Today, home field hockey games have a public-address announcer and the concessions stands are open, as is the case for home football games. Williams' field hockey staff is comparable to that of the football team. Heck, for one season, she insisted on -- and received -- a three-story tower comparable to ones that football coaches often use to get high angles on the action.

But what most people do not see is the woman in her New Jersey home, doting on her two dogs Jersey and Champ, all the while nursing a severe knee injury during the summer of 1999. They do not see the woman who gives of herself and her household, occasionally taking in a houseguest who is down on his or her luck. They do not see a woman exhibiting the extraordinary empathy the afternoon after the plane crash which took the life of John F. Kennedy Jr., along with his wife and her sister.

Spend enough time with this legendary coach, and you understand why she became the first scholastic field hockey coach to attain the 500-win, 600-win, 700-win, and the 800-win mark.

Billie Jean King once talked about two levels of understanding when it came to equality in women's sports: "below the line," where one does not understand, and "above the line," where one totally gets it.

Nancy Williams has been above the line for more than 40 years. Make that way, way above the line. Even before the passing of Title IX, she had begun laying the groundwork for the successes that she and the softball, basketball, track, and field hockey teams have enjoyed at West Long Branch Shore Regional (N.J.).

The numbers are staggering: more than 1,600 wins in these four sports, 800 in field hockey alone.

Behind the wins, however, is a principled woman who has not only helped shape the way the game is coached, but has shaped the way that girls' and women's sports are funded at institutions that are federally-funded.

How has she done it? How does she keep doing it?

The answers may be found, oddly enough, on Nancy Williams' coffee table.

The first item on Williams' coffee table is a book, "Raise the Roof," a chronicle of the Tennessee women's basketball team, written by legendary coach Pat Summitt.

"I read a lot, and I think you have to change with the times," says Williams, reclining in a chair in her New Jersey home on a summer day. "If you stay motivated, the kids stay motivated."

But it is not that simple, having to stay current for four decades. Today's teenagers are not the same when Williams started back in 1970. She has, however, been able to reach her players with a consistency unlike many other teachers, not just coaches.

"You have this huge effect on kids, which is scary," Williams says. "Sometimes, you don't know when to say too much, or you haven't said enough. It's part of the coaching element that is not part of the books of X's and O's. Anybody can learn the X's and O's about anything, but that does not qualify you as a good coach. It's a person's ability to transfer the knowledge to the kids and to perform it at a consistent and a competitive level that makes the difference between a good coach and a bad coach."

She realizes that part of reaching children is understanding their values systems -- and its faults.

"I don't think that kids have changed; I think that the environment has changed," she says. "I mean, money is a big thing to kids. When I ask, 'Why do you go to the mall?' they say, 'To spend money.' When I ask, 'Where do you get the money?' 'I work.' I ask, 'Why do you work?' 'To get a car.' I ask, 'Why do you want to get a car?' 'To get to the mall.' We have put less responsibility on our kids these days, but I put the same responsibilities on these kids as I did in the 70s."

And there is the same work ethic that is the hallmark of Williams teams since she started coaching the game she loved at Shore Regional.

"We had 11 games that year," she said about the 1970 season. "We were 8-2-1, and when I think about my years in coaching, that first group of kids sticks in my head because they learned very quickly how to go from the rec/intramural/going out to have fun/serving cookies after the game, to playing very hard. Those kids were so enthusiastic and had such energy, and the thing I'll always remember is that they were so grateful that someone would go out there on a daily basis and spend time with them. The game was not that sophisticated back then, but the girls were screaming for equality back then."

Oddly enough, it was the only season that the Blue Devils didn't win its conference championship; they have won the next 41 since.

The second item on Williams' coffee table is a book called "Raising our Athletic Daughters," by Gene Zimmerman and Gill Reibel, a book symbolic of her tireless efforts on behalf of Title IX as applied to not only field hockey in her district, but all over the country. Indeed, it took a pair of lawsuits by Williams to redefine how the 1972 Civil Rights Act was to be applied in terms of equality of funding in education and scholastic sports.

"Title IX has been here for 25 years, but I got involved in a situation where it wound up on the front pages because of the situation at Shore," Williams says. "It was great that it happened because it brought more awareness of Title IX. Coaches in the Shore Conference have told me how much easier it is to get things, because if they just bring up Title IX, the athletic directors are signing their requisition papers. They are very much aware of the fact that it is a Federal law, and you have to comply with it."

Thanks to Williams' efforts, Shore Regional's field hockey program is beginning to look very much like a football program -- cheerleaders, concessions stands, pre-game announcers.

While Williams has been called a feminist for her tireless work on behald of women's athletics, it goes much deeper than that. She realizes that equality cuts both ways: just ask her whether she would coach a boys' varsity field hockey team at Shore Regional.

"Absolutely," she says. "I introduced it into my phys-ed classes in the freshman and sophomore level, and the boys love it. I had this one boy who was weaving through my field hockey players! Now, I don't think that boys should be playing on girls' teams, but I would absolutely love to see the boys playing. That would be one way to generate more interest. Two things come out of my gym classes: 'I love this game,' and, 'It's hard!' And they have a whole new appreciation when they see the girls play."

The next item you can find on Williams' coffee table is Bill Bradley's "Values of the Game," which goes right to the heart of her identity. She is a Jerseyan through and through, having attended Shore Regional and Trenton State College, and coming back home to Long Branch to coach. One of her two dogs is named Jersey, and she has home seats at the Meadowlands for the Jets pro football team.

Williams also has a tremendous respect for the level of competition in the Shore Conference as well as the state of New Jersey. She has enough respect for the competition in the state of New Jersey to realize that, despite the team's successes over the years, there have been times when the Blue Devils are not necessarily the best on any given day or era.

"It was at Bordentown High School in 1979, and we were playing Haddonfield -- and it was that Haddonfield team that was the beginning of skilled hockey," she recalls. "But we kept Haddonfield off the board through two overtimes, and won in strokes. I went away saying, 'Man, we did not deserve this; they were the best team.' "

Williams, more than just about any other coach, helped expand field hockey from its roots into another level of possiblity. When she first started coaching, field hockey was very much a game limited to areas south of Burlington County, especially in high-income areas.

More than 40 years later, field hockey is found all over the state, in rural as well as suburban areas.

"I had coaches who sent me letters in '92 after winning the state championship, who told me, 'You're the one whom everyone looks to,' " Williams says.

Not everyone in Long Branch and vicinity looks to Williams, as might be signified by the presence of the novel Scott Turow's "Pleading Guilty" on her coffee table.

Throughout her career, she and members of her team have had to undergo more than their share of litigation and occasional harassment, at least according to papers filed with the federal government and the State of New Jersey.

Pranks and slights led to verbal sparring. Then, there was the incident when a firecracker exploded outside her house, shattering a window pane. There were the constant harassing statements from football players. There were the constant snipings from members of the school board, which attempted to relieve her of coaching duties in the mid 1990s.

But there has been a tremendous upsurge in the loyalty of the girls' and women's sports community. Hundreds packed the galleries during board meetings when Williams' status was on the agenda.

"It's a cult-like situation, which is one of the reasons I think we need a change," the school board president was quoted as saying. "We have to remember that this is only an extracurricular activity."

But while board members have come and gone, Williams has stayed.

"People who don't want to give equality to women must be awfully afraid of the success that they're going to have," Williams says, choosing her words carefully. "That's just ignorant, narrow-minded, old-time, chauvinistic, good-old boys. It's time to get rid of them."

The next item on Williams' coffee table is a motivational book called "The Edge," by Howard Ferguson, which collects quotes from throughout the ages.

Williams' ability to motivate herself is amazing, especially after three decades. Over the course of the past decade, she had been expecting to hand off her clipboard to some prominent Shore graduate coming home after a brilliant collegiate playing career. But Williams, who attended Shore Regional when it first opened in 1962, has remained.

"I've got 30 years and 500 visions of being jubilant," she says. "That's what makes it special. The pure numbers don't mean anything to me, but it means I'm old; 30 years is a lot. It means I've had 30 years of opportunities to work with kids."

While Williams has been coaching at Shore, the women who might have been her potential replacements have been going to nearby districts or starting nearby recreational programs. Alumna Lisa Caprioni is coaching at nearby Red Bank (N.J.) Catholic, while Meghan Kelly, another Shore Regional graduate, coached at Long Branch (N.J.) High School. Kathleen Kelly Stefanelli heads up the Jersey Intensity field hockey club and is an assistant coach at Monmouth University.

"It's no surprise that Lisa and others who came from my program have the good backgrounds," Williams says. "The work ethic is the key. I've been blessed that my kids have followed my work ethic."

It has trickled down in more ways than one. Two weeks before entering the University of Virginia, Shore graduate Andrea "Andy" Begel came down with appendicitis.

"All I know is that the incision was about this long --" here Williams spreads her fingers an inch wide "and that the doctor went around the muscle. She was out there running sprints in two weeks. She was such a hard worker, she worked beyond belief."

Williams may have players who have attained All-America or NCAA championship status, but she is most proud of one amazing statistic: in her 30 seasons of coaching, every graduate but one who has played at a U.S. college program has been elected as a team captain.

"That speaks more than any skill level they could have," Williams says. "I have the most pride in that the kids go on to be the captains of their programs, and they are that well-respected for who they are, not just their hockey skills."

Propped up on Williams' coffee table, lying next to that diverse arrangement of books, is the head of her other dog, Champ. The puppy, with a soulful look in its eye, pants to lower its body temperature on this summer afternoon.

"You want attention, huh?" Williams says in mid-sentence, a caring look on her tanned face.

Nancy Williams may look intimidating in mid-game or mid-practice, but she has a heart as large as a house. She is, despite her hard exterior, always looking out for others.

"My first year, there was a kid whose father left five kids to live with another woman in town, and the mother left town and went south with three of the kids," Williams says. "That left a high-school junior and senior looking at each other saying, 'What are we going to do now?' "

Williams did the only thing she could.

"I took them into my house," she says. "I come from a huge family -- eight brothers and sisters -- and my father said, 'That's another daughter I didn't need.' But coming from a big family, what's another one?"

Even during an era of unprecedented perfection on the field at Shore Regional, Williams has helped her players deal with many off-field problems.

"I had a kid who was an alcoholic, and whose parents were alcoholics, and there was no reason for this kid to not become an alcoholic -- didn't go to class, grades were in the toilet," she says. "I sat on her, was tough on her. People, to this day, say, 'I can't believe this kid even talks to you.' I say, 'Why? I'm the only one who told this kid the truth.' She went on to have a great career in college, and now she's working with me."

Williams still has room in her heart and her house for a lodger; more recently, the boyfriend of one of her assistant coaches has taken up residence. "I take strays off the street," she quips.

What may give the most insight into Williams' character is located right next to the coffee table as the interview winds to a close: her leg, immobilized in a bulky brace.

She had to undergo knee reconstruction during the 1999 softball season when an opposing runner plowed over her in the third-base coaching box. She had to undergo a complicated knee reconstruction that may not be a permanent fix: she admits that she may have to have a total knee replacement.

It is an interesting comparison between the state of her knee and Williams' view of her sport in the United States. She knows that field hockey in the United States could use a bit of reconstruction, having seen how women's sports in many different areas from the WNBA to the U.S. women's national soccer team to pro softball to pro tours in gymnastics and figure skating have captivated a public the way field hockey has failed to do so in more than 100 years of play.

"Right now, you have the east coast, California, and a parking lot in the middle," she says about the layout of field hockey in the United States. "It has to be played all across the country."

She also sees a partial solution in how to change how the U.S. Field Hockey Association does business.

"If they were smart, they'd take their offices out of Colorado and move to New York City, where all of the big businesses and corporations are," Williams says. "There will be a lot of people in that are in business and who know field hockey who will be (in New York). It is where you have the contacts with the media of the world, and you can get some great sponsorship."

Even with that, however, there is a long recovery ahead for a sport she truly loves.

"I don't think we'll ever be at that (gold-medal) level," she admits. "They're trying, but not enough kids want to play it. Our best athletes aren't pllaying field hockey because they don't have the opportunities to do so. They're being channeled into soccer, because it's cheap; all you need is a ball. Also, you can have instant success kicking a ball as a five-year old. It can take years to learn how to hit a field hockey ball. It's a different game."

Williams' injury represented one of the first times in her life when she did not have an answer for an oncoming opponent. But her work ethic and rehabilitation meant that she did not skip a beat, coaching and directing in several off-season camps.

But she has persevered over time. She was on the sidelines on September 14, 2012 as the Blue Devils beat Lawrenceville (N.J.) 4-0 in a regular-season game.

That was Williams' 800th field hockey win. The next day, of course, was more practice and preparation for No. 801. Such is life at the top.