Alumni Profile
Alumni Profile
Grateful to be a Tiger Bernadette Laukaitis ’00 already had a long history with Holy Family University before becoming the sixth head coach of the women’s basketball team in May 2019. She was a three-year team captain of the women’s basketball team, and her time as a studentathlete was followed by eight seasons as part of the coaching staff for the Tigers under the University’s head coach Mike McLaughlin ’91, the same coach she played for as a Tiger. After a year as head coach for Cabrini University and then continuing her career as an assistant coach under McLaughlin at the University of Pennsylvania, Laukaitis returned to Holy Family University to serve as head coach, a job that she calls “a dream come true.” Her first season was full of incredible highs for Laukaitis and the women’s basketball team. But shortly after the women’s basketball team finished its 2019-2020 season after advancing to the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference Championship game on March 8, 2020, the Tigers — and all of the Holy Family University community — were faced with unexpected challenges with the COVID-19 pandemic significantly affecting the immediate future of Holy Family University Athletics. Laukaitis soon shifted her coaching mindset to lead her team under very different circumstances. She explains, “I asked myself, ‘What are the things that we can do right now as coaches?’ Because Xs and Os are off the table now. It’s more about the mental health of everyone.”
Coach Bernadette Laukitias during the Tigers’ game against Thomas Jefferson University on December 21, 2019. 32
WINTER 2021
