The United States Coach of the Year: 2017
Mary Werkheiser, Norfolk (Va.) Academy

Norfolk (Va.) Academy is not exactly a new field hockey powerhouse. It may have entered the national conversation in 2017 with telling victories over Virginia Beach Frank W. Cox (Va.), Tredyffrin Conestoga (Pa.), and Louisville Assumption (Ky.) on the way to a 24-0 record.

Indeed, Norfolk Academy has won the last four Tidewater Conference championships as well as three of the last four Virginia Independent Schools Athletic Association (VISAA) titles.

But the 2017 season was the definition of a perfect storm. The Bulldog varsity featured 10 seniors, of which five had been together as a cohort since second grade. And this senior class just happened to be the first to play its four upper-school seasons on its home turf, one of only four water-based surfaces located on an American secondary school campus.

You have to go beyond the turf, beyond the preparation, in order to understand the head coach who managed to keep it all together.

Mary Werkheiser, the 2017 United States Coach of the Year, learned from her father the value of using everyone on a team, and kept that all-for-one, one-for-all ethic throughout her 22-year coaching career at Norfolk Academy.

"To have a championship-level program," she says, "you have to have everyone involved. All 20 players needed to know their roles and feel their value to the team."

The ball fell mainly to the team's core: twins Greer and Halle Gill, Lily Clarkson, Riley Fulmer and Liz Heckard. They played a very cool, calculating style of field hockey where they would, over and over, make the right play and dared the other team to try to stop them.

It wasn't fancy; but it was lethal.

Werkheiser, who played for the legendary Sharon Taylor at Lock Haven, had seen the mental toll of NA's run through the 2016 postseason, and decided on a different approach for the 2017 season.

"What we wanted to do this year was to enjoy the season, enjoy every practice, and just enjoy the process of doing what we do every day," she said.

And for many of the squad members, it's playing and practicing on the as-yet-unnamed water-based pitch located just off Wesleyan Drive in Norfolk.

"We no longer have to fight for space," Werkheiser said. "Your skillset gets better on the turf. And when the U.S. women were established down here (in nearby Virginia Beach), we saw the value of turf."

And for an undefeated season? That value is priceless.
ALSO CONSIDERED:

Cheryl Capozzoli, Newport (Pa.): Led the team from the banks of the Juniata River to within a game of the Class AA state finals

Jackie Ciconte, Houston Kinkaid (Tex.): The former University of Maryland forward brought her passion and energy to the Deep South and guided Kinkaid to the Southwestern Preparatory Conference championship

Roxanne Courser, Lyndon Center Lyndon Institute (Vt.): In her 19th season, her team was able to win its first state title this season

Erin Creznic, North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake (Calif.): In her 15th season, might have had her best team, which went 20-0 and conceded just three goals all season

Jodi Byrd Hollamon, Delmar (Del.): Brought the small-town team with the big-time work ethic back to the state championship and won it for the second year in a succession

Kent Houser, Millerstown Greenwood (Pa.): After 35 years and more than 1,000 wins in three sports at the school, brought the field hockey team to its first state final and won it

Michelle Johnson, Winchester (Mass.): The Sachems beat both Watertown and Acton-Boxborough in the same season; in the former matchup, a 184-match unbeaten streak ended

Starr Karl, Chantilly Westfield (Va.): In her final season as a scholastic head coach, was able to coach her daughter and a determined group of seniors to a state championship

Stanley Phulpagar, Christian Academy of Louisville (Ky.): In his fourth year at the helm, the Centurions entered the Apple Tournament for the first time, and won it. The team then went on to win the KHSAA state final

Henry Reyes, Los Gatos (Calif.): The team went the entire season unscored-upon as its undefeated streak reached 90 matches

Julie Smith, Tabernacle Seneca (N.J.) — There have been expectations heaped on the newest of the Lenape Regional School District schools since its 2003 opening, but Smith guided the team to its first appearance in the state title game