As the Old Saybrook High School spring sports season kicks off, there are new faces to introduce. OSHS spring sports wants to welcome three coaches, each with different backgrounds in the fields. One new face is Coach Philpot, the boys’ lacrosse newest assistant. Philpot started playing lacrosse locally at Ledyard High School, where upon graduation, choose to study abroad. He went to Bruges, a Russian high school where he taught students English and started to introduce lacrosse to students, eventually making and coaching a team. After about a year he went to Moscow and decided to get involved with the Moscow Lacrosse Club and coached there for about four years. After moving back to America, he settled more locally as he coached one year at the Middleboro Highschool in Massachusetts and then started volunteering for the OSHS Boys Lacrosse about 2 years ago while now, he is ultimately the assistant coach.
Moving on to a new face, Coach Ken Hynes, will be the new softball head coach. He brings around 30 years of coaching experience, spanning across youth leagues to travel teams. Outside of coaching, Hynes played four years of division three baseball at Drew University. Over coaching, Hynes focuses on life lessons, helping players be able to balance out academics with sports, and the players family and social life. Hynes believes that being successful is achieved when being the best version of oneself.
On the other spectrum of lacrosse, the girls team is welcoming a new assistant coach as well, with Ms. Beck. Beck is a former player on the Old Saybrook Girls Lacrosse team as she graduated in 2019. Coach Beck is, “really excited to get started.” Although it’s her first year coaching high school lacrosse, she previously coached for GameBreaker Lacrosse, which runs camps across New England, as well as coaching for Nor’easter Lacrosse, a club team. Coach Beck has been around the game even before she began coaching. “I played college lacrosse at Roger Williams University and finished my fifth year of eligibility at Lindenwood University,” she informs. She said she wants to provide some pace and strategy to the girls team, which she learned from playing at the collegiate level. Coach Beck wants to not only learn who the girls are as players, but also to get to know the players as individual people outside of the sport. Coach Beck has large goals for the team this year. She states, “Competing for a Shoreline and state championship is a big goal for us. I want the girls to feel like they’re part of something bigger than themselves and rely on each other on and off the field.” Coach Beck wants to have a lasting impact on the team and wants them to gain valuable life lessons too as she hopes that “Along the way, I hope they grow in confidence, become strong leaders and communicators, and develop skills that will help them beyond lacrosse.” Coach Beck values life skills like communication and leadership just as much as she values the sport itself.
With new diverse experiences, commitments, and new perspectives these coaches are ready to leave a lasting impact on athletes. Ultimately these coaches are focused on a few common goals which are for their athletes to be respectful on and off the field, to honor the game, honor the community and to overall represent themselves well.
