In Her Own Words: Katie Dougherty

Everything went from zero to 100 in the blink of an eye. 

I went into the hospital on February 27 to be induced, welcomed my son William on March 1 and was released on March 4 into what felt like a whole new world. I had followed everything going on in the world on the TV in the hospital, and my first thoughts were for the health of my family and players. I had wondered how it was going to impact not only the U.S., but Maryland, and the entire world of sports. 

Then on March 12, the season came to a halt at the end of an already rollercoaster year.

The last 12 months have been memorable for so many reasons.

It was early July in the summer of 2019, and I was in London recruiting when I found out two life-changing pieces of news. I was standing by the grass courts in Roehampton when I got the call from Damon Evans that I was going to be named the head coach of the Maryland women’s tennis team. Just two days later, I found out I was pregnant. It was a pretty surreal and overwhelming time, as two things I'd dreamed about happened almost simultaneously. 

I had initial fears of how my pregnancy would have an impact on my team; my dreams had come true, and yet I found myself worrying about how they would play out. 

There is a fear amongst many female coaches that having children is a death sentence for your career. I would always be the first person to encourage someone else, but with myself I had let doubts creep in. As a young assistant at Penn State, I had seen my boss Buffy Baker successfully navigate having a baby mid-season, and it had a lasting positive impact on me.

I remember my mom sent me an article about Brenda Frese coaching through her pregnancy at Maryland and the image of her coaching with so much intensity from that big leather chair on court stuck with me. 

There were many times when I was feeling so lousy or exhausted and I just told myself that I had to dial it up and be great for a couple of hours for the team. We have so many successful female coaches/moms at Maryland who have had babies during their seasons and on the particularly hard days I would just try to emulate them. I would tell myself, “Brenda and Cathy (Reese) did this and have won National Championships, quit feeling sorry for yourself and let’s go.”

I'm so fortunate to have great friends and mentors in coaching that kept reminding me that everything would be fine and I'm not the first and won't be the last coach to have a baby during the season. I was incredibly nervous to tell my supervisor, Shawn Flynn, that I was having a baby, but he didn’t flinch and offered only congratulations and loads of continued support. 

My wife has also been incredibly supportive throughout the last 10 years, with one move, two children and three jobs. As a former professional athlete, she understood the uniqueness of being a coach and the demands it has on you not only time wise, but emotionally, especially when coaching at a high level. Coaching can really translate into a lifestyle that you can rarely turn off. Family becomes intertwined with the program, and it was important to have that understanding. 

The best decision I made last summer was hiring Dan Pollock, who I knew could run the program in my absence. He’s an outstanding coach, recruiter, and person. The team was incredibly kind and gracious throughout my pregnancy and I can't express enough how much that meant to me especially in the beginning when I had horrible morning sickness. It was a hot fall, and I found myself searching out refuge in the shade and trying not to get sick in the middle of practices.

In early February, I was faced with a scenario I had never had to deal with. I couldn’t travel to Oregon with our team due to being in the final month of my pregnancy. Missing that trip to the Pacific Northwest was the first time I haven't traveled with one of my teams since I started coaching in 2003. 

I had every device in my house live streaming different courts.  I was pacing around, it was torture. 

That weekend was also the last time I hit on court. Junior Amber [Policare] was recovering from an illness and didn't travel that weekend. I was the only coach still in College Park so I ended up working with her. When I was warming her up, I told her, “you gotta hit the ball right to me, I can't move laterally anymore,” the ultimate control drill. The team returned with a split in two matches. 

The match at Rutgers on February 14 was the last time I traveled with the team. We had a WILD doubles point, Kate (Yemelyanenka) and Ayana (Akli) fought off six or seven match points and my heart rate was through the roof. I started to feel like I was going to faint and had to pace around and breathe through it. 

I have been coaching for a long time and your blood pressure certainly rises during these kinds of situations, but it’s even higher when you’re pregnant. The team ended up pulling out a great 5-2 win and starting the Big Ten season with a win.

We were starting to build momentum heading into the bulk of the Big Ten season. We were 1-0 in the conference with the win over Rutgers, doubles was starting to click, and we had already almost tripled our win total from the previous season. 

And, then it all ended. 

Damon did a great job keeping us in the loop, and I know, as a coaching staff, we weren’t as blindsided as other schools when the Big Ten pulled the plug. 

But the finality of having to cancel the season still brought on uncertainties and a sense of disbelief. I called Dan with the news while the team was at practice, and told him that was it, and that everything was done. He was the one who told our players, and there was an initial sense of shock and disbelief. 

The sadness would come later, but our main priority was to encourage everyone to go home since they wanted everyone off campus. It was a strange time with a lack of information, so we tried to get everyone to where they felt comfortable and we would figure out the details later.

I'm bummed for our seniors and the whole team. One of the toughest parts is once it was over, we were also isolated from each other and couldn't get together to celebrate all the positives. 

Several of the girls couldn't go home because of the border closures, so they ended up staying stateside. Adela [Josefova] did manage to go back home overseas to the Czech Republic and Saya [Usui] went home to Japan, so we have players all over the place. 

Zoom can't quite capture the same feeling of having everyone together laughing and as our emotions are blunted behind a screen. It’s been interesting trying to work around different time zones, but I do appreciate that with today’s technology it’s extremely easy  to connect.

My plan was to try to come back for the end of the season and travel for the Penn State/Ohio State weekend and the Big Ten tournament, but plans change and I'm fortunate to have even more time with my boys and to not have had to make the decision to travel or not.

COVID forced us to put life on pause. Then came the murder of George Floyd, and I felt like America was on fire. That there is still so much racism, violence and social injustices in 2020 and it’s incredibly disheartening. I started to see things through the lens of the people around me; Ayana, our Black coaches, coworkers, friends and seeing their pain had a profound effect on me. Racism wasn’t something I thought about on a daily basis, but it needs to be. 

Tennis is a global sport and more diverse than ever.  Our American stars and the future of tennis Venus and Serena, Coco Gauff, Sloane Stephens, Madison Keyes are women of color. My team is very diverse and that’s a strength we can harness for positive change.

I try to hammer home the importance of gratitude and responsibility to my team all the time and that’s how I’m choosing to look at 2020 with all the chaos and uncertainty.  I’m incredibly grateful to have my position at Maryland and work in such a supportive environment with great people. I had a beautiful healthy baby boy and although our seniors’ years were cut short they secured great jobs at Fannie Mae and Merrill Lynch that they’re moving onto.  

I have the responsibility to lead this team on the court but also an opportunity to help them grow as leaders off the court where they’ll ultimately make their biggest impact.  

Like most people, I’m looking for the positives in all this and the things that I keep coming back to are the time it’s allowed me to have with my family I would never otherwise have had, and perspective.

@coachkdough

Katie Dougherty