They say, “If you can’t do, teach.” But this summer, two Yale coaches proved popular convention wrong.
Coaches Amanda O’Leary and Mary Moan each received honors this summer for achievements in their respective sports. O’Leary, Yale’s women’s lacrosse coach for the past 11 seasons, was inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame at Temple University, her alma mater. Moan, Yale’s women’s golf coach, won the Connecticut Women’s Amateur Golf Tournament that took place Aug. 11 to 13.
Temple announced O’Leary as among the six Class of 2004 Hall of Fame inductees on Sept. 1. For O’Leary, the chief honor is being a member of this particular class of initiates.
“It’s a great honor because the people I’m being inducted with are amazing individuals, not only in the athletic world but just overall great people,” she said.
In 1988, during her senior year at Temple, O’Leary led the Owls to an NCAA Women’s Lacrosse Tournament Championship, where she was also named MVP of the Final Four. O’Leary was a three-time All-American not only in lacrosse, but field hockey as well.
O’Leary credits her many achievements to her teammates at Temple. “I think it’s a wonderful individual award, but I think it says a lot about the teams I played on,” she said.
Now, O’Leary is focused on coaching and aims to improve her team’s 2004 No. 9 ranking.
“I get my fill coaching, and it’s all coaching now,” she said.
O’Leary will be officially inducted at a ceremony in Temple’s Licouras Center on Oct. 8.
Moan, on the other hand, was rewarded for a more recent achievement. She shot 76 in all three 18-hole rounds of the Connecticut Women’s Amateur Golf Tournament for a finish of 228. Guilford’s Katie Stepanek nearly rallied for the win, but Moan held on with a two-putt par from 40 feet to win by one stroke.
Moan had looked forward to the tournament from the start of the summer.
“It was a goal I had set for myself at the beginning of the summer and I was obviously thrilled at being able to reach that goal,” she said. “It was very rewarding to see that goal come to fruition.”
Before preparing for this tournament, she had not played competitive golf in seven years. She began her physical and mental preparation for competition this winter. During the summer, she started playing in tournaments, including the Connecticut Women’s Amateur Match Play Golf Tournament, which she won.
For Moan, her players have always been an inspiration.
“I think being around people who are competitive every day helped me keep my focus on being a competitive person,” she said. “Certainly just watching the girls improve inspired me to take up this game that I love again and to be serious and to take it as far as could.”
Players affirm that the relationship is mutual.
“The fact that she succeeded so well shows how good of a game she has and how much she can improve our game,” Marion Stanley ’07 said.
Moan’s recent achievements are merely additions to a long line of victories. As an undergraduate at Princeton University, she won 16 collegiate tournaments, including the 1997 Ivy League Individual Championship.
Next, she is preparing for both her own individual tournament in the New England Open and for her team’s first tournament next weekend at Dartmouth.