Lisa Joel is the Director of Athletics, Head Coach of the Girls Varsity Soccer (GVS), faculty advisor for Relay for Life, and a complimentary house counselor in Alumni House. In her free time, she enjoys cooking, running half marathons, and exploring the mountains.
What was really special about this year is that every week, and I guess arguably almost every day, that group of players came out onto the field at Graves. We love Graves. It’s really special to us. There’s a long history on Graves Field, and they [train] so hard together every day as individuals, through so many stresses that people don’t see. People see game days and they see game results, but all the beautiful things we did on the field, all the beautiful results, all the intense relationships, those were the result of the days and hours that we spent on the field or off the field together that no one sees… We beat two teams that had undefeated records across the [region], Nobles and Worcester. We were their only losses… That’s why I said to the team after, I hope for the rest of their lives, they find something that they care about so deeply, that they’re willing to do all that they can and everything they can for themselves and each other through the good and the bad, because that’s what happened with GVS in a very special way this year.
Shortly after college, [because] I loved competitive things, I actually ran the Boston Marathon. I’d never thought about running a marathon. In February, before the marathon, a friend of mine was training, [and] got injured and so, she transferred her number to me. I ran for Brigham and Women’s Hospital, so I was a charity runner. Until the day I ran Boston, I [had] never done anything more than half marathons. I remember the time I went to our cross country coach at Andover… John Stableford, who’s a legendary cross country coach here, [and] I’m sure he doesn’t even remember, but I never forgot this. He said [that] if you can run a half marathon, your body knows how to run a full marathon. So I trusted him, and it worked out pretty well. I had a great time, and it was really incredible to be part of that very, very special community of runners.
I love cooking. I grew up in an Italian household, a three generation Italian household. I had an Italian grandfather who was actually the primary cook in the house. I love everything about how food, cooking, and culture brings people together. When you’re Italian, that’s really central to many homes. People are sometimes surprised that I enjoy cooking. I don’t get to do it enough because I work a lot and the type of cooking I want to do is all day cooking starting in the morning and spending time with family and friends… I love pasta primavera, [and] making fresh pesto. Anything Italian I’d like to make it for you. I like making homemade dressings. I like baking. I love making muffins for friends. Sometimes I get up at five in the morning to make banana chocolate chip muffins or pumpkin muffins. I just really love cooking for other people, and when you cook, people can come together and you can sit around and enjoy that.
I don’t travel to a lot of countries. I don’t get out of the country much, but I love going to the mountains. Anywhere I can go [where] I can be in the mountains is where I want to be. That’s where I feel happiest. A few years ago, I had the very good fortune to [go to Wyoming for]… a 10 day wilderness expedition [that] was completely offline. It was a leadership trip with executives from around the world. I was the only person in education. I was the only person from New England. We were [in the wilderness for] ten days. It rained torrentially for most of those days. We were at 11,000 feet. We were cooking in the wilderness, sleeping in the wilderness. It was some of the happiest days of my life…To be with a group of people that your survival depends on, [and] to also understand physically and mentally that you can be challenged and overcome challenges individually, but even more collectively working together.
I wish people knew that while I love everything about the excitement and the fast pace and the full life of Andover… I wish people knew that I seek a quiet, simple life. I want people to know that the impact [and] the legacy I hope I leave behind was making the spaces I existed in happier, more joyful, or fuller for people. The way in which you have to model that is slowing down and having quieter times, [and] more communal moments. It’s sort of this imbalance here for me because I kind of go, go, go. I cherish the things that are actually really slow and, maybe less visible… I’m considered a person who has a lot of high energy, a lot of capacity to juggle a lot, but I wish things were simpler.
Oh my gosh, that was over 30 years ago. I was a student athlete in college, and one of my teammates, her stepfather at the time, was the Director of Athletics at Andover. She let me know about an opportunity in the athletics department. I was coming out of college having played three sports, and there was an opportunity for me to come work and coach and stay in athletics. That [played] a big role in my college experience.
I want everyone to see the athletic department in a more inclusive light. Sport, even for me as a woman in sport and a woman who was born right around the passing of Title IX, athletics has often been really exclusive and a lot of people don’t see themselves in these spaces in positive ways. A goal I’ve always had is that our program in the broadest sense is athletics for all, and athletics broadly defined. What I want is that everyone has a positive experience and recognizes the importance of movement in their long term life. Everyone’s athletic career, quite frankly, is going to come to an end. For many, it comes to an end when they finish high school. But what we want is to establish a mindset and a routine of moving and being with others that really makes people well.
Hamilton’s one of my [top Spotify artists], it’s very random for me. I got a lot of Hamilton going on, and then I’ve got a lot of Fleetwood Mac. I’m really a product of the eighties. I like a little bit of pick-me-up music. I listened to Beyoncé and Miley Cyrus to exercise too, but I normally listen to whatever GVS has on the playlist.
It’s really hard to be a champion, right? I always say this, I’m a deeply competitive person. I love to compete well. I always say to my players, we can’t control the results. What we can control is the attitude we bring to training, the energy that we bring to the game, game day, the focus we bring. So being a champion, if we only consider [a] champion as who wins at the very end… what it means to be part of a champion culture is to bring a champion attitude every day, because I actually think we grow the most when we fail. We grow the most when an individual has an injury and they have to be sidelined. Then they have to figure out, how am I a champion teammate? I have to figure out how to be a champion coach when our team is tired or when we lose… Team’s records at the end of a season are maybe just part of the story, but what kids are walking away from is understanding more about themselves, what it means to be part of a team, how you succeed with humility. That to me, all those things, that’s what it is to be a champion.
Find the joy. These are some of the best days of your lives. Being able to play and compete in the sport that you love is not always easy, and sometimes it’s just downright hard and frustrating. Part of being an athlete is [to] put yourself out there to lose, and there’s no athlete out there who doesn’t lose. Sometimes what we enjoy most is just playing hard, competing, failing, and dusting [ourselves] off, and [doing] that over and over again. Find joy and not stress in it. I want people to love, find a passion, [and] chase after it, knowing part of that will be some disappointment, but it will change your life. That’s my hope.
