AROUND THE QUADS | ATHLETICS | BY BOB HOWE ’80
17 Years of Coaching the Team to Beat
I
first met Lisa Parsons in the spring of 2004 while I was interviewing for the position of director of athletics at Loomis Chaffee. She sat in an office with Associate Head of School Woody Hess, and they fired questions at me for almost an hour. That session was part of a series of interviews during the day-long visit to the campus where I grew up. When the day began, I was somewhat interested in working at Loomis, but after witnessing Coach Parsons' energy and commitment about teaching and coaching excellence, I left the campus at the end of the day with a burning desire to get the job and return to Loomis to work with quality people. It was clear to me in that very first meeting that Coach Parsons was a special coach. The 2013 season marked the end of Coach Parsons’ tenure as the girls varsity lacrosse head coach, a role she has filled since the spring of 1997. In 16 lacrosse seasons — Lisa was away on sabbatical in 2007 — her teams compiled a 183-37-7 record. Over this time Loomis girls lacrosse won 10 Founders League titles, seven Western New England titles, and three New England championships. The team's record under Coach Parsons speaks for itself. However, for Lisa, it’s never been about the record, but about how she and her assistants could make the girls on the team better. Sprinkled in with the school’s traditional rivals in the Founders League and the New England prep school conference, a handful of public school powerhouse girls
Anita Rackovan and Lisa Parsons coaching in tandem this spring Photo:John Groo
“
There is no opponent we wanted to play more [than Loomis] — for the sheer joy of great competition — and no opponent we wanted to play less, for more often than not, it was a loss for us.
”
— Andover girls lacrosse head coach Kate Dolan
lacrosse programs — perennial state championship-caliber teams from Longmeadow and Westwood, Massachusetts, and Darien and New Canaan, Connecticut — became regulars on the Loomis schedule under Lisa. The girls in the Loomis program have played the best teams in New England at the insistence of their coach, and playing the best is one of the reasons the program has seen so much success. Lisa started her prep coaching
career at a rival school. “I began coaching at Hotchkiss as an assistant with Kelly Stone [now athletic director at Convent of the Sacred Heart School],” Lisa recalls. “Loomis was always the team to beat. I never imagined that one day this would be my team.” When Lisa arrived on the Island, she was an assistant for two years with Linda Smurl. In the years prior to Coach Smurl, Sue Biggs and then Kathy Nobles had led the program, establishing a tradition of outstanding coaches.
When asked if there were any particular teams or players that stand out as most memorable, Lisa is quick to say that every season and every set of players created long-lasting memories. Her three undefeated teams (2001, 2002, and 2010) included incredible athletes and personalities, and the 2005 team was her most athletic. But the list of individual standouts on all of her teams is too long to recite. Big games against rivals Hotchkiss, Greenwich Academy, Andover, and others produced the best memories for this veteran coach. “Playing against schools and coaches you have great respect for has been something I’ve really come to enjoy over my years coaching in this league,” she says. “I have developed great friendships with so many of my fellow coaches over the years.” There is mutual respect and admiration from her colleagues. Angela Tammaro, the coach at Greenwich Academy, describes Lisa as a top coach who gets the best out of her players. “Lisa’s teams are always well prepared and competitive. Playing against Loomis always brings out the best in the opponents,” Coach Tammaro wrote recently. “Her teams have always been at the top of [Western New England Prep School] and New England lacrosse. She has given back to lacrosse in so many ways.” Another friend and coaching colleague, Kate Dolan at Andover, wrote: “Lisa is a great teacher of the game of lacrosse. The number of LC lacrosse players competing in college and coaching at all levels is tes-
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