New Day, New Team

The 2003 Collegiate graduate competed in field hockey and soccer (plus a season of winter track) during her time on North Mooreland Road, earned multiple All-League of Independent Schools, All-VISAA, and All-American citations, played hockey at the regional and national level, and, in 2014, was inducted into her alma mater’s Athletic Hall of Fame.

 

A defender, she was a four-year hockey starter at Wake Forest, a crème de la crème program. She played on the US National Team from 2013-2015, served as an assistant coach at Temple, Bucknell, and Wake, and from 2018-2023 headed the program at the University of Richmond.

 

She earned a BA in English and sociology from Wake (3.29 GPA) and Master of Education from Temple (3.80 GPA) and served on the board of directors of both the National Field Hockey Coaches Association and USA Field Hockey.

 

At every stop, she was all in. Her natural ebullience and positive spirit were infectious. She had fun, for sure, but inculcated in her were a whatever-it-takes work ethic, a team-first mentality, and an unbridled desire to excel.

 

This past December, though, she found herself at a crossroads. She had no team to coach, her playing days were over, and she wondered what would come next.

 

She had other skills, she knew. When she was at Bucknell, she worked in both the admission and development offices after her stint on the national team before she joined the Bison’s coaching staff.

 

Coaching, though, was her passion. It was her identity, or so she thought, but with three young children (David, Rae, and June, all under five) and her husband R.D. working as the associate director of student-athlete success at Richmond, uprooting and starting over were more easily said than done.

 

“It’s similar to when you move on in your career from being a full-time athlete,” she said. “How do you redefine yourself after you’ve been a coach for a very long time? Coaching consumes so much of your life in really good ways but in ways that when you depart from it, it can become very difficult.”

 

She stepped back to consider her options. She consulted with trusted friends, including classmates Mayme Donohue and Kirby Baltzegar.

 

“In talking with them and with other friends, you get a different sense of who you are,” she said. “You think of yourself in only one way, and then you realize that they don’t view you as only a coach. They view you as a friend, a mom, a high school buddy, and someone they can reminisce with.”

 

That said…

 

“When I really sat down to reflect on what kind of work I want to do and where I want to do it, being on a campus and in a community really matters to me,” she added. “I found it. I like it. I need it.”

 

What she found was her new position as Middle and Upper School admission coordinator at Collegiate, and, in a way, a new team and a new lease on life.

 

“I tend to think of myself as front of the house,” she said. “I’m speaking with families. I’m speaking with potential students and their hosts, organizing their visits, and making sure that people feel welcome here when they’re checking out the school.”

 

She works closely with Dave Taibl, Director of Admission and Enrollment Management, Amy Becker-Leibowitz, Director of Middle and Upper School Admission, Emily Randolph, MS/US Admission Associate, and Taylor Kell, MS/US Admission Assistant.

 

“What a team!” Montgomery said. “It’s a group of folks who has a great sense of what it’s like to live and work in a JK-12 world, which I haven’t before. They’re really showing me the ropes and being very encouraging and understanding. I’m very fortunate to be working with folks who very clearly want to be the best they can be, and they’re teaching me how to do that in this new arena.”

 

Montgomery is also coaching Collegiate’s JV field hockey team and loving the experience, which comes without the many challenges and, let’s face it, hassles involved with overseeing a Division I college program.

 

“College coaching is really fun and very tough,” she said. “The landscape of college athletics is changing massively. Who knows where it’s going to go? I admire so much many of the coaches who can sustain it. You go and go and go, and there’re times when a couple of days away would help you reignite yourself, but the demands are such that it’s difficult to take that time off.”

 

When she graduated from Collegiate 21 years ago, did she ever envision returning to North Mooreland Road?

 

“I didn’t,” she said, “but not in a way of, Oh, I’ve got to get out of here. It was more of, Gosh, this place really helped me get where I’m going, and I’m really excited to jump into the world.”

 

There were milestone moments — her 10th reunion and her Hall of Fame induction — when she returned, and she checked in occasionally with Karen Doxey, her high school field hockey coach.

 

“They were times when I thought, Oh, wow, this would be a place to come home to,” she said, “but I was living my life and doing some coaching and didn’t think at the time that there would be a homecoming just yet.”

 

“Yet” has arrived.

 

“The Collegiate community has such wide-open arms,” she said. “I feel so fortunate to be in their embrace again.”

~Weldon Bradshaw