Opportunity. It’s a word often jokingly associated with an event or an occurrence that is usually anything but, particularly in the workplace. Spencer High softball and tennis coach Monica Sicka found herself with such an “opportunity” early this year. It was late January or early February when her bosses approached her with a proposition. Spencer had a tennis team but no coach. They wanted her to take over the team. Sicka was in her first year at Spencer. A physical education teacher, she also coached softball and, in the past, had coached basketball at St. Anne Pacelli. Sicka, however, did not play tennis. She had never played tennis. She knew nothing about tennis. She took the job anyway.
Monica Sicka grew up in Belleville, Illinois, located in the western portion of the state not far from St. Louis, Missouri. She attended Belleville East High School, where she played softball and basketball. During Sicka’s junior year, her softball team won an Illinois state championship. Basketball, however, was her sport of choice. A guard/small forward, she played basketball at Southwestern Illinois College, a two-year school in Belleville. From there, she went on to Columbus State University, where she finished out her playing career.
Sicka graduated from CSU in 2008 with a degree in exercise science. She followed with master’s degrees in education (2010) and business (2012). She originally planned to be a physical therapist but eventually decided on education. Coaching was always something she wanted to do as well. Her first coaching job came at St. Anne Pacelli, where she coached basketball for three years while working in the private sector. Coaching and working outside of the school became too hectic; when Sicka decided to teach, there were no PE jobs open at Pacelli. She ended up at Spencer.
When she went to work at Spencer, she knew she would be coaching softball. “Since I had played in high school, the sport was very familiar to me. It was a lot of fun,” she says. The softball team came with its own set of challenges. First of all, only a few players were returning from the 2013 team. To make matters worse, the team had no pitcher. Sicka took an outfielder and taught her how to pitch. As you might expect, it was a difficult year. Both players and coach were getting to know each other. The inexperience of the team only compounded an already tough year. “We had a good group of girls and everyone was excited and positive in spite of the challenges,” says Sicka.
After softball season ended, Sicka thought she would get a break for the spring. Then came the tennis opening. “When I got the tennis job, I just rolled with it. We had a lot of kids who wanted to play, some good athletes who wanted to learn the game,” she says. To prepare to coach a sport she had never played, Coach Sicka watched hundreds of hours of videos and sought the advice of every tennis player she could find. Sicka cobbled together a basic understanding of the fundamentals of the game and went to work. “Our kids picked up the game well. We had some good athletes and they played pretty well this season,” she says.
The women’s team had a challenging season but the men finished tied for third in the region. The entered the state tournament as a fourth seed. They didn’t make it out of the first round but just getting to the tournament was a step in the right direction. The toughest part of the season for Coach Sicka was not knowing what to tell the players outside of basic instruction. Because she had never played tennis, she wasn’t familiar with the nuances of the sport. “I didn’t play tennis and that made giving them pointers difficult. They needed more than just the basics,” she says. Next year, that won’t be a problem; now Sicka has picked up tennis and is looking for a local league to join. She has developed a love for the sport; as such, she will be better equipped to coach the team next year.
Speaking of next year, her goals for her teams are simple. She would like for the men’s tennis team to get one of the top two spots in the region, the women’s team to get to the state tournament, and for the softball team to make the playoffs as well. “Both programs are growing. The players are dedicated to working hard and getting better. They want to improve and they’re all very positive. We’re headed in the right direction,” says Coach Sicka.
Coach Sicka learned a number of important lessons coaching softball and tennis this year. Maybe the most important was the need to be flexible. Most of her players were also involved in other activities and she had to adjust her schedule to allow the kids time to meet their other obligations. “We had to take it one activity at the time,” she says. “I had to work the schedules so the kids could remain involved in their other clubs and activities. It was also a really wet spring and we had to re-schedule just about everything. This year really showed me that I needed to be flexible.”
Coach’s Corner/Columbus Valley/June 2015
Monica Sicka
Spencer High School
Columbus, Georgia
by Robert Preston Jr.
