Coaching a high school level sports team with your dad is something not a lot of people get to experience, but for Caitlin Woods, the current head coach of the Morgan girls’ basketball team, it was something she experienced for eight of her sixteen years of coaching high school basketball.

“Coaching together, [me and my dad] got along extremely well for the most part. But one thing I struggled with was when I was coaching JV and I could hear my dad in my ear to put these kids in, and I always tried to be fair, but you know, sometimes it’s hard because you want to win. I’m very competitive, so sometimes me and him would disagree from time to time.”

For Woods, the basketball court is certainly a familiar place. Whether she was playing throughout her childhood, coaching, or watching games, the court has always been a huge part of her life.

Growing up, Woods played soccer, basketball, ran track, and was constantly surrounded by coaches whether it was at home, at school, or in athletics. Her father, Steve Woods, the current head coach of the Old Saybrook girls’ basketball team, coached football, basketball, and baseball at Valley Regional High School when she was a child.

“I don’t remember a time when I was not always there [at school with my dad]; my after-school care was basically at Valley Regional High School, where my dad coached for all three sports,” said Woods.

Along with her father, Woods has many coaches in her family, including her Godfather, who was the head coach of Valley Regional boys basketball team at the time and coached with her father being his assistant coach, for many years, and her brother, Kevin woods, who played for her dad as well and now coaches the boys’ varsity basketball team at Valley Regional and is also the track coach.

“I’ve definitely had great leadership in that sense and great role models throughout my life,” Woods added.

She started coaching right out of college with her father in 2008 when she graduated from Fairfield University, and she was his assistant coach for the Old Saybrook girls’ basketball team.

“It was a perfect segue way because my dad needed a coach, and I had played for him in high school when he was our assistant coach at Old Saybrook.”

At Old Saybrook, she coached for eight years and then made the difficult decision to leave the team and her father and take the position as the Morgan girls’ basketball team’s head coach. She has been coaching the team since 2016 and has been assisted by Jessica Lynch, a math teacher at the Morgan School, for all nine years.

“The biggest difference between the two positions at first was feeling like all the pressure was on my shoulders, and just knowing every day I have to be prepared for every practice and game,” said Woods.

While being a coach is a huge part of her life, Woods pursued a career as an English teacher, though it was not something she had always planned on.

“For the longest time, I really wanted to go into some sort of broadcasting, but I got into college and started reminiscing about the teachers I had at Old Saybrook High school and realized that I wanted to be able to influence kids the same way they influenced me,” Woods said. So, she switched her major and decided to become an English teacher. Her first teaching position was at Daniel Hand High School, and her current job is at Jared Eliot Middle School, teaching eighth grade. There, she also currently coaches the cross-country and track program.

Something very special to her is her relationship with her parents, but in particular the special bond she and her father share. “My dad and I are extremely close. We constantly are talking, even when we’re rivals. He’s the first person I go to on any sort of big advice, beyond Coach Lynch when it comes to basketball,” said Woods.

A special thing she and her father have is a drying towel that she had embroidered to say Morgan girl’s basketball, her first year coaching at Morgan. “My goal was to give it to my dad the first game when we won, and unfortunately, that first game he handed it back to me because we ended up losing only by three points,” Woods said. The next game their teams played against each other, Morgan won, and her father has had it since.

A moment in coaching that speaks out to Woods in particular is when she had an athlete come to her and wanted to share with her how much the support that she gave to them throughout basketball meant to them. “I want to do well for the team, but there’s a lot of heightened emotions in games and practice, and you want to support 100%, and you can’t always do that. But when you hear you had that kind of impact, that’s pretty special,” said Woods.

This year, for the first time since she started coaching basketball, Woods and Lynch will both be coaching the Morgan girls’ basketball team at the Class S State Championship at the Mohegan Sun Arena on Sunday, March 16, at 10 am. This will be the first state championship game the team has participated in since 2014.

“There’s always going to be adversity no matter what. You’re always going to have to get over challenges, but I think that if we continue to work hard, this team can end the season on a positive note and with a win.”