A six-time national champ from Scarsdale is now Division III women's athlete of the year
The field hockey and lacrosse sticks sit, at least temporarily, idle now, next to her bed at home in Scarsdale.
Three of Erin Nicholas's six national championships between them.
Four straight in field hockey. Two, the most recent last month, in lacrosse.
Their owner was a three-time field hockey All-American at Middlebury College and the national Division III Field Hockey Player of the Year for a remarkable three straight years.
Last month, she was named All-American in women's collegiate lacrosse for a second time out of the three seasons she played.
But Thursday, after being nominated for her field hockey accomplishments, Nicholas topped all of that, becoming Honda's Collegiate Women's Sports Awards Division III Athlete of the Year for all sports.
That marked only the second time a field hockey player was chosen for the award, the first being 20 years ago.
Nicholas will receive her award at the University of Southern California during a live telecast airing at 9 p.m. East Coast time on CBS Sports Network on June 27.
She was selected via vote by NCAA schools.
Nicholas, who knew the resumes of the other 10 nominees (including Amherst soccer player Rubie Hastie of New Rochelle) said she was surprised and "super honored, humble and proud" to have won.
The award capped what she describes as a "very special year;" It was especially significant to Nicholas not just because she was a senior, but also because it marked the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the federal civil rights law that in part sought to bolster girls and women in athletics.
Middlebury, which a year before the law's passage played and lost one women's lacrosse game, then, weeks before Title IX became law, finished its season 2-0, went 22-1 this spring.
The field hockey team, begun in 1968, played only six games both the season before and season after Title IX passed. This season, led by Nicholas and her 28 goals and 36 assists, the squad went 22-0.
In winning that fourth straight national title, the Panther field hockey team became the first Middlebury College team to ever go undefeated during a legitimate season (not counting the 2-0 type of years).
Nicholas's top "joy" moment from four years of collegiate athletics came after the last second ticked off from Middlebury's 4-1 win over No. 2-seed Johns Hopkins to secure her field hockey squad's four-peat.
"I remember the overwhelming emotion," the 22-year old recalled. "I remember hugging my teammates and coach and crying and them hugging me and crying. It was such an unspoken feeling of emotions, a combination of being so happy that we ended with a win and were the first Middlebury team to go undefeated and, on the other hand, the sadness that this was the last time we'd be doing it, and the gratitude for the friends we have who are not going away (with time)."
When the women's ice hockey team, founded in the early '80s, followed suit, running the table and winning nationals in finishing 27-0, Nicholas and her lacrosse team became "so fueled and motivated."
That team went 22-1, dropping the New England Small College Athletic Conference title game by a goal to Tufts before turning the tables and beating Tufts by seven in the Division III national championship game.
That gave those three Middlebury women's sports teams an astounding combined 71-1 record for the school year.
It's fair to say the past several years have been quite a ride for Nicholas, who played field hockey, (co-ed) ice hockey and girls lacrosse in high school and played them well enough that she easily could have gone Division I in college, at least in field hockey and lacrosse.
While she considered Division I schools when she dubbed herself a "raw athlete ... rather than a field hockey or lacrosse player" as a high school freshman and sophomore, she later concentrated on looking at Division III schools with the goal of playing both.
Attending a camp at Middlebury, she was impressed by "how inclusive the players were," how well they treated campers and how the team exuded a "less competitive feeling and more of a 'I'm ready to play feeling.' "
She has zero regrets about her chosen path.
Citing the people she met at MIddlebury as the "great gift I've gotten out of it," she noted professors could be found in the stands.
While playing two sports and majoring in molecular biology and biochemistry (she had a 3.83 grade-point average) was challenging, Nicholas never seemed to lack support.
High school friends and coaches attended last fall's NCAA championship field hockey game in Hartford and after that game and the women's lacrosse title game, texts and calls from old friends and coaches flooded in, including from many people she didn't expect to ever reach out.
"It was so amazing," she said. "What was cool was seeing how sports brings people together."
Classroom star, too: Con Edison Athlete of the Week: Scarsdale's Erin Nicholas
That might be extended to include her tight-knit family, who made her title games. But even for regular-season games, those who couldn't be on hand watched via live-stream, then joined a group family chat about the game. Nicholas said a typical post-game chat would consist of about 150 texts.
One of five children, all of whom either played a college sport, or, in the case of the youngest sibling, Brian, who just finished his junior year at Scarsdale, will play in college, Nicholas traces her success to her earliest years.
"With my family, my parents, my siblings, I was taught how to work hard and to set goals and to work on my own to achieve them, and also how to be a good teammate and lead by example," she said.
She figures maybe 30-40% of her athletic success is due to genes that have given her a "strong baseline" in sports. But she also points to summers spent in the weight room and running.
"I am the person I am because of the lessons athletics taught me, especially with the challenges faced the last four years. They helped me grow and learn," Nicholas said, crediting field hockey coach Katharine DeLorenzo with hammering home lessons about fully concentrating on the task at hand, making sure to "control the controllable," learning from challenges, recognizing everyone on a team is a "value-add" and holding oneself and others accountable.
Nicholas sees all of that translating to life outside sports.
Due to COVID, she has one season of lacrosse eligibility remaining but is likely pass on using it.
She's currently studying for the MCAT (Medical College Admission Test) with the tentative plan of following her dad, Stephen, and late grandfather, James, into orthopedics.
She plans to take the test in late summer or January but will start work as a clinical research assistant in August at New York City's Hospital for Special Surgery to get some exposure to working in the medical field before attending med school.
Nicholas, who spent a good amount of time in the Middlebury training room with field hockey-related back and hip issues and with largely lacrosse-related leg issues, said, "(It's) appealing to work with people to help other people. It's what I want in a career."
This, of course, will be her first summer in forever not preparing for a fall sports season.
But Nicholas, who mentioned likely coaching something someday, isn't going to be completely buried in books.
That two-season field hockey stick and one-season lacrosse stick still have lots of life in them and could get some work.
Noting her sister, Michaela, a former Franklin & Marshall College field hockey player, works in the city, she said maybe there will be opportunities to play field hockey down there, as well as some lacrosse.
"Maybe there's a pick-up league. Maybe I can have some fun," Nicholas said.
But that drive to improve, which, in Nicholas's case, has always been part of the fun, isn't going away.
She talks about upping her golf game to better play with brothers James (a former Yale, who now plays professionally), Stephen (a former Franklin & Marshall golfer) and Brian (who's on Scarsdale High's golf team). They may, she joked, have to give her a lot of strokes, though.
But maybe only temporarily.
This is, after all, Erin Nicholas, whom DeLorenzo said is "relentless in her pursuit of excellence."
The same Erin Nicholas, who, despite spending much of her senior year wearing medical tape or braces for one injury or another, may be temporarily ruling out running full, 26.2-mile marathons, but, hey, not half marathons.
In a sentiment that wouldn't surprise those who know her.
"I want to see myself push to further my distance and improve my times," she said.
Of leaving college sports, Nicholas said, "It's a bit weird but I'm excited to see my next steps."
Probably 13.1 miles of them and plenty more.
Nancy Haggerty covers cross-country, track & field, field hockey, skiing, ice hockey, girls lacrosse and other sporting events for The Journal News/lohud. Follow her on Twitter at both @HaggertyNancy and at @LoHudHockey.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Scarsdale's Erin Nicholas named national D-III women's athlete of year
