One could be forgiven for not believing that the recently completed season was Paula Conway’s first coaching the girls field hockey team at The Bishop’s School in La Jolla.
It’s not common for a first-year coach to go 10-0 in the Western League and 25-1 overall and make school history with its first CIF San Diego Section Open Division championship in field hockey and MaxPreps’ No. 1 ranking in San Diego, California and the entire West, as well as seventh in the nation.
“Coach Conway … is so focused on making sure every moment is spent getting better and moving closer to our goal of winning the CIF championship,” said senior team captain Alex Pfister. “[She] seems to know exactly how we are going to spend every second of every practice.”
Conway’s daughter, freshman standout Lola Conway, said her mother “has brought a lot more intensity and has done a really great job uniting us as a team and creating a lot of connections on and off the field that has helped us play better.”
Paula Conway said her approach to coaching the team has been a “combination” of different aspects of other top teams at Bishop’s, such as boys lacrosse, girls volleyball and boys and girls water polo.
“We are very fortunate as a school and athletics department to have so many amazing coaches to learn from,” Conway said. “So this year, I have really been learning from them and their programs to almost find their ‘secret recipe’ to being so dominant and winning things like CIFs.”
Specifically, Conway started a weightlifting and conditioning regimen for her team this year after being inspired by the girls volleyball team’s focus on strength training.
Moreover, learning from legendary Bishop’s water polo coach Doug Peabody’s programs, Conway has embraced reviewing game film.
And from boys lacrosse, she realized that starting practice later can maximize field space.
Pfister and Laine Jeffery, also a senior team captain, have been on the Knights’ field hockey team since their freshman years and said they have noticed the significant positive impacts of Conway’s changes.
“The focus on strength and conditioning has helped our team immensely,” Pfister said. “We lift twice a week and condition even more, and it is making such a difference to our performance in games. I am stronger than I have ever been in my life.”
Jeffery said she feels “like we all feel stronger and faster. We feel like we can compete to our fullest potential for the full 60 minutes because we are fit enough to push ourselves all the way through.”
Though this was her first season as Bishop’s field hockey coach, Conway has been around the sport from a young age.
Growing up in Toledo, Ohio, she picked up field hockey early on, playing all four years in high school. Off the field, Conway had two older brothers who often would “team up and pick on her” as the youngest sibling.
Lola Conway said her mother tells many stories about her childhood and how her brothers “helped her learn how to fend for herself and become a really tough person who cannot get knocked down by much.”
She used that strength and intensity to help lead her high school team to back-to-back state championships in her junior and senior years.
Paula Conway went on to play field hockey at Providence College in Rhode Island for four years, winning Big East Rookie of the Year as a freshman, Big East Player of the Year as a senior and being named an All-American.
“Looking back at all my work and development in field hockey as a kid, I immediately think about the influential coaches I was so lucky to have,” Conway said. “I think that is where a lot of my inspiration today to help change kids’ lives comes from.”
After finishing a degree in education, Conway spent the first 10 years of her coaching career with college field hockey teams, first at Georgetown University, then at Penn State and Boston College. She said that period of her life was important to developing her coaching style and understanding the “level of professionalism” that goes into running a successful program.
But when Conway moved to San Diego with her husband, Nick, her path changed drastically.
“That really put a close on my time coaching college field hockey, and I decided then and there to focus on education and youth development,” Conway said.
Her first job was in Escondido working as an education specialist for children with learning disabilities. She then held positions at different high schools before eventually landing at La Jolla High. She spent seven years as the Vikings’ athletics director before moving to Bishop’s in 2021 when the same position became available.
In her time at Bishop’s, Conway has made a noticeable impact on the athletics department. From starting and organizing the BESPYs — an end-of-year ceremony for student-athletes that mimics ESPN’s ESPYs — to her initiative to make Nike the official brand of Bishop’s athletics uniforms, Conway has changed what it means to be a Knight.
“In addition to being just an amazing person generally, Coach Conway is a very dedicated athletics director,” Jeffery said. “She has worked so hard to rebrand and innovate the athletics department into something we are all so proud to be a part of.”
Conway said her favorite part of the job is “watching students in action and seeing the joy, the ups and downs and the hard work that goes into every practice and competition.”
Conway also is very involved in the CIF Federated Council in downtown San Diego, where she helps make decisions in the San Diego Section and at the state level.
She said she sees herself continuing to coach Bishop’s field hockey for the foreseeable future.
“I have loved being back coaching a team and bringing different things I have learned from other programs at Bishop’s and from my days coaching college to make a really special team,” Conway said. “I look forward to continuing building a strong field hockey program for our school that can hopefully continue to excel for years to come.” ♦
