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Field Hockey Coach
 Rachael
Allison
Head Coach
0-0-0
1st Season
[Email
Coach Allison]
Rachael Allison
takes over as the new head coach of the Highlanders
field hockey team this year. Allison comes from a
position as the assistant field hockey coach at Robert
Morris University in Pittsburgh.
Allison played for three years at Messiah College (Grantham,
Pa.), taking her team to the NCAA Division III national
tournament all three years and serving as co-captain of the team
that finished as national runner-up her senior year.
“We are very excited to have someone of Coach Allison’s caliber
joining our already strong staff here at Houghton,” says H.
“Skip” Lord, Highlander athletics director, “Having played at
the national championship level and having coached at the NCAA
Division I level, she knows what it takes to be successful and
build on our long history of quality field hockey teams.”
In addition to her duties at Robert Morris, Allison has coached
high school field hockey and been an assistant for high school
lacrosse teams in the western Pennsylvania area.
Allison has a bachelor’s degree in biology from Messiah, and
earned her teaching certification from the University of
Pittsburgh. She has begun work on her master’s degree, which she
expects to complete this fall, after which she intends to pursue
a doctorate. Her work at Houghton will also include duties in
the student life area.
“In addition to her technical and tactical expertise, Coach
Allison is a woman of character and spiritual depth,” said Lord,
“She will fit in well with our educational model of athletics
and our emphasis on sports ministry.”
Allison likes to draw on a teacher and accomplished coaching
legend, John Wooden, for her coaching philosophy, looking
to draw her team through the steps of Wooden’s pyramid of
success. “He says ‘success is playing your best when your best
is needed,’ and if you do that, then winning will take care of
itself,” says Allison.
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