Virginia Beach Native Excited for Opportunity

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. --- When Joyce Anne Koubaroulis stepped on the campus of Virginia Wesleyan College recently to begin her duties as the Marlins' recently hired field hockey coach, it was a homecoming celebration of sorts.

No, she's not a VWC graduate, but she knows the College well and she knows Hampton Roads even better. The new Marlin mentor was a standout field hockey player at Virginia Beach's Frank W. Cox High School, where she helped guide her teams to district, region and state championships in 1999 and 2000. The state titles in field hockey were the 12th and 13th for the powerhouse program.

"Being from this area, I hope to use my connections with local high school programs to recruit hard-working and talented student-athletes," said Koubaroulis. "I started playing field hockey in Virginia Beach when I was in fourth grade through a wonderful program that Debbie Lowrance founded, the Virginia Beach Hockey League. I also started my coaching with that program. I remember her (Lowrance) having a lot to do with getting the USA National Training Center down here and ever since then Hampton Roads has become a hotbed for field hockey talent."

Koubaroulis was part of that hotbed of talent and was recruited to play intercollegiatelly for Pennsylvania's Ursinus College, a Division I program at that time. She was a four-year starter for the Bears, helping direct the team to the 2004 Centennial Conference championship and the program's first appearance among the final eight teams in the NCAA Division III championship tournament.

She began her intercollegiate coaching career at her alma mater, staying with the Bears for two seasons and helping the team to another conference title and another trip to the NCAA tournament where Ursinus finished as a semifinalist.

From there she moved on to Massachusetts' Smith College, where she was an assistant coach during the 2006 season. Koubaroulis helped with numerous aspects of the program, ranging from duties with daily practices and at games, scouting, film analysis, designing off-season strength and conditioning programs, to planning and running non-traditional/spring season workouts.

Koubaroulis was content at Smith, until she saw the opening for the head coaching position that was always in the back of her mind. It was Virginia Wesleyan.

"This is a position I have had my eye on for a long time, ever since I knew I would pursue a coaching career at the collegiate level," said Koubaroulis. "I was not really looking to leave Smith, but when I saw that there was a national search for a new head field hockey coach at VWC, I knew I had to jump on the opportunity."

Koubaroulis was aware of VWC's recent success in the sport and knew the young program had tons of potential, particularly being located in what is considered to be the field hockey capital of the United States. As far as she was concerned, it was a "dream job."

"I have spent the last six years playing and coaching field hockey in northern parts of the east coast, as well as internationally, and it has been my dream to come back to the beach with my experience and continue the successful program at Virginia Wesleyan. VWC has always appealed to me because it is a small, liberal arts school, with a highly competitive Division III athletics program. I have had great experiences at Division III liberal arts institutions as a player and a coach and I'm passionate about developing a competent and competitive student-athlete on the field and in the classroom."

Koubaroulis was that competent and competitive student-athlete. A three-time Dean's List honoree, she graduated from Ursinus cum laude with a bachelor's degree in Exercise and Sports Science, minoring in coaching. She was named the Exercise and Sports Science department's Co-Outstanding Senior and she was the 2005 recipient of the Olive Sargeant Hamm Award, recognizing the senior woman who exemplifies "the best in college life - athletically, socially and scholastically."

On the field, the honors were just as impressive, including STX/National Field Hockey Coaches Association first team All-America status. She was also named the Centennial Conference's Player of the Year in 2004 and was selected to the prestigious North/South All-Star game, where she scored the lone goal for the South team. Koubaroulis was also named an East Coast Athletic Conference first team All-Star, selected as her team's Most Valuable Player and was tagged as Ursinus' Senior Female Athlete of the Year for 2004-05.

While highlights in her career were numerous, none may have topped Koubaroulis' selection to Greece's national field hockey team in 2002. She was a starter for the squad and gained experience in international tournaments and training camps in Holland, Ireland, Poland and Greece. Koubaroulis was named the team's Most Valuable Player in Greece's victory over Finland in the 2002 Women's European Nations Cup tournament.

Now she hopes to share the knowledge she has gained in intercollegiate and international competition with the women she will coach at Virginia Wesleyan. A perk for the new coach ... the Marlins will soon have a new stadium, complete with turf field.

"The new stadium will be very instrumental in helping our program achieve its goals," said Koubaroulis. "In order to become a nationally competitive program we need to be training on the surface that field hockey is meant to be played on. The turf is going to allow us to compete with the best teams in the country."

Koubaroulis has wasted no time in getting into the swing of things at VWC. She moved back to Virginia Beach shortly after she accepted the position and is finalizing plans for the 2007 season, including bringing in a new class of student-athletes.

"My early goals are to build on the success that VWC has experienced and to establish a winning program that Virginia Wesleyan field hockey players are proud to be a part of," said Koubaroulis. "I look forward to returning this program to the NCAA tournament. I want to bring this team together and get the players excited about the process that is going to lead us toward our goals of consistently challenging for the ODAC (Old Dominion Athletic Conference) championship and automatic berth into NCAA post-season play. Eventually, I hope to be among the nation's best and challenging for the national title."

As many as 17 letterwinners are expected to return to VWC's team following last year's 11-8 finish, which included four one-goal losses, among them a 4-3 loss to eventual ODAC champion Lynchburg College in the semifinals of the title tournament. Virginia Wesleyan will looking to record a ninth winning season in the 17-year history of the program in 2007. The Marlins have put together a streak of four straight winning campaigns, producing a 58-21 record overall and a 29-5 mark in league competition. VWC has finished No. 1 in regular season league standings twice in those four years, won the ODAC tournament title once and advanced to the NCAA tournament twice.

As far as Koubaroulis is concerned, that's just the beginning. 

This release is courtesy of the Virginia Wesleyan College sports information department.