Recognizing Greatness

National Lacrosse Hall of Fame Welcomes Beth Stone

If you have been to Nichols in the past 40 years, you certainly have felt the impact Beth Stone made on this community. Serving as a faculty member and coach, Stone’s legacy has been one of inspiration, motivation, and equality for all Nichols students. Since her arrival at Nichols in the early 1980s, Stone has made it her mission to coach young athletes, grow the game of lacrosse, and ensure women’s sports have equal opportunity.

Stone’s commitment, dedication, and passion for women’s lacrosse were recognized this past October when she was inducted into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame in Maryland as a great contributor to the game. In her speech, Stone reflected on the support she received throughout her career, the students who have allowed her to achieve success, and Nichols for allowing her to do her three favorite things – coach, teach, and raise her two daughters, Wendy ’01 and Kristen ’04.

“I think Nichols gave girls wonderful opportunities, in athletics, in the arts, in STEM, everywhere,” Stone said. “You got the complete package when you came to Nichols. You had faculty that were supportive in every realm of your education. The faculty all coached; they all saw you on the field, and if they weren’t coaching, they’d watch you in a different sport, or in a play, or in a music concert.”

Stone’s arrival at Nichols came a few years after the school and Nottingham merged, making Nichols a co-ed school for the first time in its history. From the beginning of her tenure at Nichols, Stone began fighting for female athletes to have the same opportunities as male athletes.

“Equal gym time, practice time in the gym on the main campus, locker room access, those were battles that we fought from day one,” Stone said. “There were five boys’ locker rooms in the gym, there was one girls’ locker room until the gym was redone in 2001. It took a long time to get some things changed.”

While there were some hurdles to navigate at Nichols, from the transition as an all-boys school to a co-ed school, Stone had no shortage of talented female athletes to work with.

“The reputation of Nichols School was that we were very strong in athletics, for both boys and girls,” Stone said. “Even in 1973-74, you had a tremendous group of female athletes that came to Nichols because of the academics, but also because we had the athletic piece. Female athletes were treated as athletes. It was accepted and encouraged.”

When Stone took over the Nichols lacrosse program, there were only two other women’s teams in the area – SEM and Park. Wanting to grow the game and find higher-level competition for her team, Stone reached out to schools in and around Lake Erie and founded the Midwest School Girls Lacrosse Association.

“I called the private schools in Cleveland, Detroit, and Pittsburgh, and they were all in the same boat,” Stone said. “So, we got together and founded the Midwest School Girls Lacrosse Association. We’d go to one of the cities each weekend, and they’d come here the second weekend in May. It was a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful way to play the game. I loved it. I loved being on the road with the team.”

Playing in the Midwest School Girls Lacrosse Association allowed the Nichols lacrosse team to play against stronger opponents, which ultimately led to more girls picking up lacrosse across the Midwest.

“The level of playing in the Midwest grew tremendously by playing teams out of your area,” Stone said. “The Midwest League was crucial to our development as a program. We could not have grown our teams to the level we had if it wasn’t for playing in that league.”

Stone’s ability to grow the sport drew attention and interest to Nichols from prospective students. She started “community” days where young players could come to Nichols and learn from Stone and her players. Teams would come to Nichols from all over WNY and Canada.

“We did clinics with players and coaches, and if you ask the Canadian teams, they’d say that coming to Nichols playdays helped them grow their programs tremendously,” Stone said. “In that way, Nichols was a big, big part of growing the sport in Western New York.”

However, Stone had her sights set on a much larger goal – to push Nichols into the national conversation for women’s lacrosse.

“I wanted Nichols to be known nationally,” Stone said. “Known with the colleges, with other high schools as a school with a great lacrosse reputation. I wanted them to know that Nichols was out there and that we loved the game of lacrosse.”

Through her work with USA lacrosse, Stone brought in members of the USA World Cup team to run camps and clinics, helped Nichols players through the recruitment journey, and always brought Nichols lacrosse up when speaking with college coaches.

Stone never stopped her pursuit of equal opportunity for girls athletics. Much of her effort can still be felt on campus today with the addition of girl’s locker rooms in the gym, equal time on the turf fields, and her work on the Hall of Fame Committee to get deserving female athletes recognized in the Nichols Athletic Hall of Fame.

Despite giving up her role in the classroom, Stone continues to coach the Nichols field hockey and women’s lacrosse teams. The profound impact that she has made on Nichols is still being felt by current students and former players.

“Beth introduced me to lacrosse,” Alise Barrett ’88 said. “She helped me get my first coaching job and introduced me to officiating. I continue to officiate to this day. I am so grateful for her encouragement over the years.” n