Holland Hall field hockey coach Christy Utter has quite the resume. She’s won two NCAA championships and four Atlantic Coast Conference championships as a University of North Carolina field hockey team member. She spent years rising through the collegiate coaching ranks at the University of Louisville and Brown University. Now, she’s back at the school that started her field hockey career: Holland Hall.
Born and raised in Tulsa, Utter’s interest in athletics wasn’t entirely surprising. Her father, Fred Utter, was Holland Hall’s middle school basketball coach and later served as the school’s assistant athletic director. As a young student, Utter remembers spending time in his office -- then shared with field hockey coach Greg Gephart, who would later play a pivotal role in her collegiate recruitment -- meeting the friendly girls of the Holland Hall field hockey team. She joined as soon as she could.
Field hockey was popular at Holland Hall then, and though the school’s team is one of only two high school teams in Oklahoma, Utter says it remains popular now.
“Having a sport that is so different and so much a part of our school's history gives our athletes a sense of greater pride,” Utter says.
The school is so dedicated to the sport that donors recently made a huge investment in a new turf field, one of the biggest contributions to women's athletics in school history.
“The program at Holland Hall is strong right now. We have healthy numbers, the girls are committed, and we're seeing some success in our conference,” Utter says. “We are getting a long-awaited and dream-come-true turf field installed that will serve as a new home to Dutch Field Hockey and will be an additional training and game field for the soccer teams and other programs.”
Field hockey, played mostly by women in the United States, involves scoring a ball into a net with ice hockey-like sticks. It’s popular among multi-sport athletes, whose skills from soccer, basketball, and more are highly transferable. Holland Hall has long been known as a school that encourages student-athletes to play multiple sports, and Utter says this emphasis pays off in the college recruitment process and at home.
“I like that these athletes get to be coached and mentored by our other great coaches at Holland Hall, that they find new ways to gel as a team in other sports, that they can see and play with other great student-athlete leaders in our school, and that they continue to relish in school spirit throughout the other seasons,” she says. “I talk to college coaches all the time, and they continuously prefer multi-sport athletes.”
Utter’s true successes don’t come from championships or athlete signings, though. She says the lessons young women learn through sports in general are what make them so fulfilling - and important. She has high hopes for her athletes that extend far beyond the field.
“I hope they learn to stand up for themselves and their teammates, never give up when something seems insurmountable, recognize the value in their teammates no matter their skill level, and fight for something bigger than themselves in conditions that are often extreme. I hope they realize that they can make sacrifices that are so worth it, that they can have fun and absolutely love what they’re doing even when it's difficult, and that the journey is so much more rewarding and more important than even the greatest of destinations,” Utter says.
" ... the journey is so much more rewarding and more important than even the greatest of destinations."
