By Adam Minichino
Mary Nagy can do it all with a smile.
One moment, she can play the role of good cop and praise the performance of a player. The next, she can wipe the slate clean and be the bad cop to encourage an individual to give their best effort.
Don”t worry, though, that smile will quickly return and all will be forgotten. Grudges won”t be held, and the New Hope High School girls soccer team will recapture the family magic that has been growing for the past few years.
This season, that magic took hold in a big way. New Hope (13-4) defeated Oxford for its first playoff victory in a number of years and then played the role of scrappy underdog to the hilt before losing to defending state champion Ridgeland 4-2.
For her efforts in guiding New Hope to its best season in recent memory, Nagy is The Dispatch”s Girls Soccer Coach of the Year.
Rising senior midfielder Demi Menotti offered the best assessment of Nagy”s ability to mix coaching methods when she said,” She”s just our mom.”
Nagy said her knack for “rolling with things when they happen to you” stems from the fact she is the sixth of seven children. The tests she endured growing up taught her how to adapt to different situations and to feel at home in all of them.
“I am a very social person,” said Nagy, who worked as an English teacher this past year at New Hope Middle School.
Nagy”s coaching philosophy mirrors the attitude she has in the classroom. Regardless of the location, Nagy looks at all of her students as “her children,” and she doesn”t have a problem holding them to the highest of standards.
Sometimes juggling so many roles and responsibilities makes it challenging to “roll with the flow,” but Nagy believes she stays balanced because her roles as teacher, coach, and mother are interconnected.
Playing so many roles made this season more enjoyable for Nagy. She has watched the program develop from a loose group of teenagers to a close contingent of young women focused on making a name for New Hope soccer.
“You hope you have trained and raised your children to be successful, and it is hard work,” said Nagy, whose “baby,” Zac, graduated from New Hope earlier this year. “As a parent, you put in that hard work and you see the benefits when your children go out and they”re successful. It is the same with soccer players or any other sport or any athlete, you want to see that success on the field.
“If you go overall picture of where the program was when I began in 2004, there were days you could barely field a team of 11 and we were very fortunate to have four or five subs on the bench. Now the program has grown and soccer has become more popular, but just the number of girls who are out is a success. When you look at our record and the success we have had there is a lot of growth and there is a lot to be proud of. It is all attributed to hard work because success doesn”t come without it.”
The girls started lifting weights in June to prepare for the 2011-12 season. The conditioning work will continue through the summer, into the fall because the taste of success has whetted the Lady Trojans” appetite for even bigger things.
There”s no doubt New Hope will reach those goals as long as Nagy can balance the good and the bad and build on the foundation that has come thanks to plenty of hard work and love.
In March, the Lady Trojans were back at it for tryouts. Menotti captured the sentiment felt by many of the players when she said, “I am so glad to be inside this fence again.”
Nagy asked Menotti why she felt that way and the response turned out to be one of the biggest compliments she has received.
“You don”t understand this is my haven. This is my safe place,” Menotti said. “When I come inside this fence, I know I am loved, and no matter what you say to me or what you do, you love me, and we”re drama free in here.”
Nagy said Menotti”s comment made her feel so special and let her know that even a player as tough as Menotti, who has been known to talk big, helped her understand what Menotti feels and what she hopes the other girls share.
“I love going out there, even though practices are really hard,” Menotti said. “We get in arguments, but it is still all love at the end of the day. It is like, ”Safe house, safe house.”
“I know at the end there is still going to be love between us, and I don”t want to leave next year. She is a mom for real.”
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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