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Former Princeton Softball Player Spence Shows Leadership Skills as PGSA Coach
By Bill Alden
Suzanne Spence has always been a leader when it comes to sports.
As a kid growing up in Calgary, Alberta, Spence was a star catcher and captain for the Calgary Diamond Double Renegades travel squad.
Spence's skills and leadership abilities earned her a spot as a catcher on the 1999 Canadian junior national team which played in the World Championships in Taiwan.
Spence, who also played basketball and volleyball in high school, brought her talents stateside to play softball on the college level for Princeton where she was a member of the Tigers' 2002 Ivy League champion squad.
After giving up playing the college game a year ago to pursue other athletic and academic opportunities, Spence is back on the diamond this spring as a coach for the Princeton Girls Softball Association (PGSA) junior team (ages 13-16).
For Spence, the move to coaching has been a natural next step in her athletic career. "I think I've really found my true calling," said Spence, after her team fell to West Windsor last Wednesday at Community Park.
"No matter what sport I've played, I've had the tendency to be a leader. Being a catcher, that's part of the position. I realized as I got older that it was because of my ability to motivate people. I really want to help people learn."
Spence's motivational skills were on display last Wednesday even as her club went down to defeat. She exhorted her charges from her first base coaching box and held team huddles at home plate between innings.
When her team was in the field on defense, Spence gave tips to reserves as they surveyed the action. After the game, Spence and fellow coach Jeff Furey gathered the girls for a post-game huddle in left field which ended with a group high-five.
Spence, who reached out to Furey this winter to volunteer to coach in the PGSA after finding out about the program through a babysitting job for one of Princeton's deans, has enjoyed the time she devoted to her squad.
"I had done clinics with the Canadian junior national team and with Princeton softball," explained the affable Spence, a sociology major at Princeton who is starting a corporate job in Denver this August. "I liked doing that but I felt that I wanted to have more time with the kids to really watch them develop."
In Furey's view, Spence has been a godsend for the program. "She's been a great role model for the girls," said Furey, who jokes that Spence's arrival on the scene has allowed him to be an equipment manager and bookkeeper for the team.
"She's close to them in age but has the experience of having played at high levels of the game. She earned instant respect. She's demanding but never gets upset with them."
Spence has learned a lot about the psychological aspect of coaching young players and maintaining the right balance between pushing and encouraging.
"I think the biggest challenge is getting to know how each player on your team is going to respond to the way you motivate,² said Spence, noting that some girls respond to a kick in the pants while others do better with a nurturing approach.
"Finding out what does and doesn't work is the toughest thing. If you push them in the wrong direction it can put them down for the whole ballgame."
Spence believes she has pushed the PGSA junior team in the right direction over the course of the spring. "They came out with the attitude that they weren't really a team to beat," added Spence. "As the season has gone on, I¹ve seen them improve even when we lost games."
Furey, for his part, gives Spence a lion's share of the credit for the progress the team has made. "The girls have had a great response to Suzanne," declared Furey.
"Their skills have gone up tremendously. She has created real team unity. It's too bad we're receiving her magic for one season because magic is what she has brought."
Sounding like a veteran coach, Spence has enjoyed seeing the magic moments that have resulted from the work her girls have put in on the practice field.
"Just watching the girls play and make those plays we've been working on," said a grinning Spence, who will be coaching the Mad Dogs Under-14 club team this summer before heading to Denver. "It's great to see things you teach at practice and then see them executed in the game. You can't ask for any more than that. It makes me so happy to see that."
The PGSA junior players have certainly been happy to have been exposed
to Spence's brand of leadership this spring.
