NORTHAMPTON — For 16 years, Sue Biggs was the face of the Northampton girls lacrosse program.
When the season started though, Biggs was no longer on the Blue Devils sideline. She was in the bleachers at Smith College, watching her daughter Emily play for the Pioneers.
But with new Hamp coach Emily Hopkins overseas for a school trip, the Blue Devils needed a substitute and Biggs rejoined the team for the week.
The Blue Devils played the first of the three games under Biggs’ direction on Monday and rolled past Westfield, 18-6, at Smith College.
Junior midfielder Megan McCarthy said that Biggs’ presence was an added incentive to win.
“I think we played really well,” McCarthy said. “Even though with the number of players missing (due to vacation), we still brought it and got the win. We have a bunch of great drivers and passers, a lot of great options.”
McCarthy scored five goals for the Blue Devils (5-0).
While Biggs enjoyed her time coaching the Blue Devils, the decision to leave was not a hard one.
“No, because of the fact that I had my daughter to watch,” Biggs said. “If I didn’t have my daughter to watch and I didn’t have an excuse to leave, there would always be this ‘why you leaving’ and it would be the juniors and seniors feeling like ‘you leaving me.’”
Biggs, who teaches chemistry at Northampton High School, said she began to feel tired of teaching and coaching and felt that it was the right time to leave the sidelines.
“I can tell you at 3:15 (p.m.) when I’m in my classroom — I teach chemistry and I’m still in my classroom — I don’t miss coming out here,” Biggs said.
During her tenure with the team, Biggs witnessed many different levels of success and failure. When describing the program’s growth from when she started it to when she left, she described it as not one straight positive incline but more of a wave with ups and downs.
“I think it is some kind of a sine wave or curve,” Biggs said. “We had problems for a few years with our youth program being small but now it’s back up again. We haven’t seen what’s coming but I know it’s pretty large, we have 70 girls out there. We had two years, not two in a row, but two without a JV (team) because we were low on numbers. When I started we had plenty of numbers, we had 40 kids come out for the two teams. I don’t think it has grown in any grand way, I think we have seen normal ebbs and flows.”
One area of growth has been the increasing amount of players who have continued playing past high school.
“What I think is exciting is I think we might have four kids who are playing lacrosse this year that graduated last year,” Biggs said. “And I think more of these seniors are intending to go away and actually play lacrosse.”
The way Biggs has coached her teams over the years has been a steady diet of direct criticism and advice.
Biggs said she always valued the fundamentals and made sure that was clear to the team. Her coaching style was not about being “cutesy and fun” but being a steady constant so that the team knew exactly what they would get from her.
This differs from Hopkins’ style of coaching.
“Coach Hopkins is more upbeat and positively constructive while Biggs critiques in a more direct way,” said McCarthy, who played for the Biggs the past two seasons.
Watching players such as McCarthy grow has been one of Biggs’ favorite parts of coaching. One of the exciting things for her was watching waves of new players join the program then graduate.
“The moment is all of the moments,” Biggs said of her favorite moment as coach. “All of the girls that come out and play for me for four years or three if they play JV and go away liking the game, that’s what it is all about. Go away a little bit better academically, because we encourage that, go away a little bit more of a leader, that’s certainly a good thing.”