Wissahickon's Gil, always moving, runs past 200 wins

Lucy Gil's first instinct was to deflect the praise.

On Sept. 29, Gil won her 200th game as Wissahickon's field hockey coach, a 10-0 victory at Cheltenham.

But, she quickly countered, Wissahickon's boys' soccer coach was close to 300. And if her memory served her correctly, the field hockey coach at Emmaus is near 400.

Anything to make it seem like she still has plenty of catching-up to do.

A Hackensack native who played field hockey in high school and then at Cornell in college, Gil's parents, both of Spanish descent, took root in Hackensack when they found a welcoming, Spanish-speaking community.

Gil took to field hockey in high school because she loved to run. She played softball when she was younger, but found it dull. She needed to keep moving, and field hockey let her.

When she arrived at Cornell as a freshman, Gil kept her foot on the gas.

She played more field hockey, and she fell in love with psychology, and she even played goalie on the school's lacrosse team because she said to herself, "I think I can do that. Why not?"

Of course, she could.

After she graduated from Cornell, Gil returned to Hackensack and began coaching field hockey at her alma mater, taking a team she said knew little about the sport and turning them into sectional champs in her 10 years as field hockey coach.

On the side, she earned her masters degree in psychology, and then her PhD.

Never a dull moment; not for Gil.

Senior Kara Miles calls her passionate. Miles first met Gil in 2012 and couldn't decide whether to enjoy the head coach's teaching or be intimidated by her trademark sunglasses, but she knew she had found a friend.

Gil's assistant coach, Shelley Meier, calls her determined. The two have been working together for nine years, Gil as the "tough-but-fair" offensive mind and Meier as the "lovey-dovey-but-fair" defensive guru.

In 1998, after 10 years of coaching at Hackensack, change came, and it was slow.

Her daughter was born, she and her husband moved to Pennsylvania, and Gil took a few years off from coaching to spend time with her newest family member.

By 2003, the coaching itch returned.

As she leafed through the Ambler Gazette one day that summer, she found an ad for an open coaching position with the Wissahickon field hockey team.

Since the fall of 2003, Gil has taken just one season off, in 2011, when she and her family briefly relocated to Connecticut.

She has coached local legends like Katie O'Donnell, who played internationally for the United States during her time at Wissahickon.

Gil won a district championship in 2010, the final year of her original stretch with the Trojans.

She has accomplished plenty. And finally, she's learned to slow down, if only a little.

Gil used to run for miles and miles in her early years as a coach to satisfy that ever-burning furnace of hers.

Now, with one hip replacement in the rearview and another ahead of her, Gil doesn't run.

Instead, each fall she coaches groups of girls to new heights and top speeds, a legacy passed on through a labor of passion and determination.

"Now I run vicariously through the girls," Gil said. "How's that?"

rallysports@phillynews.com