“Coming into a Division I program is always going to be daunting for a freshman, but from the beginning Sarah introduced us to our team and did everything she could to make us feel connected,” Gamble said. “She cares about us on and off the field, she takes time to get to know our families [and] she encourages us in other endeavors outside of lacrosse.
“But when we’re on the field she is 100 percent lacrosse. There’s not one thing I would want to change about her coaching style.”
“Everyone on the team loves Sarah,” Sproul said. “She keeps the game of lacrosse in perspective for us. She is competitive but still realizes that it should be about having fun and playing the game we all love.”
“I have a tremendous amount of respect for Sarah and would trust her with anything,” Sproul added.
What Sproul describes is this kind of relationship that Nelson seems to strive for, and it is also something she discovered long ago from her own coach, Kleinfelder.
“Beyond the x’s and o’s, I learned so much from her, as far as managing a team, motivating people, how people work—treasuring her players as people first,” Nelson said. “That’s the tone of the program I want to preserve.”