New Team Room for Student-Athletes Opens as Director of Athletics Tim Kohs Celebrates Decade of Leading Program

It has been a remarkable decade of progress for student athletes and the roster of athletic programs at Mercy High School—reflected most visibly in a steady stream of state championships, vastly improved facilities, and greater attention to the health and safety of the scores of students who participate in a full menu of competitive sports.

This year, the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Director of Athletics Tim Kohs at Mercy, coincided with the latest in a series of milestones— the debut of a new Team Room for student-athletes, with top-notch facilities that reflect the quality and caliber of the school’s programs.

“We strive to provide our athletes a high level experience both on and off the court,” explained Kohs, reflecting on the latest step forward. “The student athletes have a tremendous work ethic and the socialization that the Team Room affords is how you build a team— the kids hang out together, become friends, and that enriches everything about their experience at Mercy.”

A member of the Southern Connecticut Conference of the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, Mercy fields 25 teams across the calendar, and has earned 11 Championships in recent years and seen many noteworthy individual performances. The Mercy Tigers have become synonymous with solid preparation, exemplary teamwork, and unwavering dedication—along with tremendous skill and unrelenting work ethic.

The Fall athletics roster includes Cheerleading, Cross Country, Field Hockey, Soccer, Swimming and Diving, and Volleyball. Winter athletics include Basketball, Cheerleading, Gymnastics, Ice Hockey and Indoor Track. Spring athletics include Golf, Lacrosse, Softball, Tennis and Track. Some of the interscholastic sports have both Junior Varsity and Varsity teams pursing competitive schedules. Throughout the athletics program, girls can improve their physical abilities and knowledge of sports, learn teamwork and leadership, and promote responsibility and fair play. And they do. It has been ten years of incremental progress at Mercy, as stand-out results on the field have been matched by steady improvements to the athletics program. Kohs, working closely with the Mercy administration, has been a leading catalyst and donors and supporters of the athletics program have been instrumental in accomplishing much-needed upgrades.

Among the more significant advances was the hiring of a full-time athletic trainer, in what had been a part-time position. That change, eight years ago, meant that a trainer would be present to assess, treat, prevent and rehab injuries, as well as providing training to coaches in CPR and First Aid. Beyond that, Kohs explained, a full-time trainer enables athletes to be “treated by a person that has a grasp on their individual personalities and pain tolerances, gets to know the students,” and is there to “assess, treat, and rehab injuries daily.”

In addition, along the way relatively little things have gone a long way towards stepping up the overall caliber of the athletics program.

Bringing in a temporary scoreboard when two different sports were playing on adjacent fields, as was done about seven years ago, or putting up a temporary fence to reduce the number of balls from one sport that interrupted play when they crossed into another field, were positive steps. Establishing a rotation in which all teams are outfitted with new uniforms every five or six years, as was also done midway through the past decade, was a noteworthy achievement. The past decade also saw the addition of a gymnastics program beginning with the 2015–16 year, along with a co-op hockey program that was initiated with Northwest Catholic.

Although a new gym was built at Mercy just over a decade ago, limited funds at the time precluded construction of locker rooms. Thus, for much of the past decade, the lack of a formal locker room meant that a relatively small and somewhat cramped space beyond the auditorium stage did double-duty as a team space before, during and after games. Although that space was upgraded through the years, it still fell short of a comfortable, quality, invigorating team facility. That changed this year.

The Team Room for Mercy student-athletes is the centerpiece of ongoing upgrades. It provides Mercy’s indoor teams a “home base” to call their own; a space where they are able to get ready for practices and games, discuss strategy, meet or watch game film using a new video monitor and enhance camaraderie and team spirit. It offers more than two dozen individual lockers for players, and an enveloping aesthetic that demonstrates a dedication to quality befitting the hard work and seriousness of purpose that the student-athletes show in their athletic pursuits.

Nearby the new Team Room is attractive new signage, All-State boards listing the names of student-athletes earning that distinction in each sport, and donor recognition plaques, reflecting appreciation of those whose support for construction of the Team Room was indispensable.

“Socialization is how you build a team,” Kohs explains. “Kids hang out together, become friends. It’s a great space, and keeps us moving toward the highest level program it can be.”

The previous team room space, Kohs recalls, “was very small for the number of girls on the teams. The space did not allow for anything other than chairs, and could not accommodate the entire volleyball and basketball teams.” Not only do current Mercy students benefit, but “prospective students can’t help but notice,” Kohs observes. The new Team Room features inspirational posters extolling virtues including effort, excellence, pride, and teamwork that serve as a source of encouragement, and the Mercy Tigers logo is prominently featured. The new facility was made possible by generous donations to the Mercy High School Athletics Program by parents and donors, and, another point of progress, includes adjacent facilities for visiting teams and referees.

It puts in the rear-view mirror an array of temporary locations for various aspects of the program—a former storage closet, previous music room, old utility closet among the locations that underwent various renovations, including temporary walls, and new bursts of color that signaled intent, but fell short of the quality Team Room that all involved hoped to someday achieve. That day has now arrived, even as additional refinements to the Mercy athletic program remain ahead. Another popular aspect of the Mercy program occurs each summer, as Mercy welcomes girls from around the state for the annual Summer Basketball and Soccer Clinics. The clinics, which feature current and former Mercy basketball and soccer players, aim to teach girls the fundamental of these sports through drills and competition in a fun, friendly environment.

Mercy takes pride in its commitment to both academics and athletics, as student-athletes are challenged both academically and physically to excel. And increasingly, Mercy has been earning recognition for consistent, exceptional performance in the classroom as well as on the field, on the court, on the track, and in the water.

“Our student athletes now have a facility as impressive as all the work they put in to excel in their sport,” said Mercy’s President, Alissa DeJonge. “We are tremendously proud of their commitment to excellence each and every day, and we are grateful to everyone who contributed to making these facilities a reality. Tiger pride, resiliency and gratitude are present in all that we accomplish.”