Continued from page 39


“Goucher was the perfect fit for me,” said DeLorenzo. “While it was a small music department, it had a strong relationship with the Peabody Conservatory and I could train and grow there while still having an athletic outlet.”


DeLorenzo’s talent and discipline combined to help her earn All-American honors while partaking in one of the most time-demanding majors in school.


“I am a mother of two boys and I have been a dual-sport coach and an athletic director,” recalled DeLorenzo, “but I have never been as busy as I was the second semester of my senior year.”


As a music performance major, DeLorenzo’s semester was chock-full of performance after performance, demonstrating her talent with the violin when she wasn’t doing so in the pool or on the field.


After that jam-packed semester, DeLorenzo wanted to continue her education. She realized, however, that the funding would be her responsibility. In conversations with friends, she heard that she might be able to get some assistance if she were to be a grad assistant. The only problem was that most programs were looking for PE majors, not concert violinists.


Undeterred, DeLorenzo kept searching. She found DePauw University, where she could enroll in the musicology master’s program at Indiana State University while coaching at DePauw.


“It was a perfect fit,” recalled the violinist. “I could pursue a career in music while having athletics foot the bill.”


The only problem was that DeLorenzo started to think a career in music might not be the way to go. While it was a passion of hers, such a progression might not be the best career path. “I needed to be employable when I graduated, and athletics was a much more stable profession for me. I had loved coaching and playing, and that career seemed the way I needed to turn.”


And after her first semester, the future National Coach of the Year walked into the registrar’s office and changed her major to athletic administration.


While one might think it was the finale of her career, it would be better to think of it as just the coda — the end of this movement. After earn ing her master’s degree, DeLorenzo sought employment and found a home in Oberlin, where, ironically, the Oberlin Conservatory of Music is one of the most prestigious centers of music in the United States.


40


At Oberlin, DeLorenzo hit the ground accelerando. In just a couple years, she transformed both the hockey and lacrosse teams to the top of the North Coast Athletic Conference, helping the Yeowomen to double-digit wins in each sport. During the 1993-94 academic year, DeLorenzo earned Coach of the Year honors in both hockey and lacrosse, the only time in conference history a coach was the sole honoree in both sports in the same academic year.


In 1995, DeLorenzo continued her winning ways, helping Oberlin break Denison’s stranglehold on the lacrosse tournament as the Yeowomen became the first team to defeat the Big Red in NCAC tournament history. The coach of the year might have been the same person, but now she had a different name. That winter of 1994, Katharine married Gene, who was Oberlin’s basketball coach.


“It was a perfect fit,” recalled the violinist. “I could pursue a career in music while having athletics foot the bill.”


DeLorenzo moved on to Albany in the summer of 1995 where she took over the reins of the Skidmore hockey program. Music had not left her though; when she wasn’t helping the Thoroughbreds win league titles and advance to the NCAA tournament, she was playing with the school orchestra, this time finding an outlet for her musical tastes while excelling on the sidelines through hockey.


After six years at Skidmore, DeLorenzo moved further north to Middlebury, where she currently serves as head hockey coach and an assistant lacrosse coach. She has not lost her touch of success in both arenas. She helped the Panthers to the NCAA championship game in three consecutive seasons, earning National Coach of the Year honors in 2003. She mentored Missy Krempa, the 2003 National Player of the Year, and seven years later was a soloist at Krempa’s wedding.


These days, DeLorenzo continues to find a wonderful peace through her music, and the New England countryside is often complemented by the strains of her violin as she performs in tiny churches and performance halls, with the notes pushing back and melting the cold winter air.


An additional bonus is the opportunity she has to join her mother in performances, a joy that brings the precocious youngster back to her days in Arlington when she first picked up a 200-year old violin and music was simply as much a part of life as noon formations at Annapolis.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60