Ivy League Sports

Two deans of Ivy League women’s coaching are Harvard’s Carole Kleinfelder and Penn’s Anne Sage, both of whom built teams from novice to championship level, and created two of the first and most powerful dynasties in Ivy League women’s athletics.

The 1999 season was Kleinfelder’s 20th as head coach of the Harvard women’s lacrosse team. Harvard first sponsored the sport in 1975, but it changed character markedly in 1979 with the hiring of Kleinfelder, who was already the Harvard women’s basketball coach and coach of the U.S. national lacrosse team. She immediately launched a vigorous program of training, recruiting, innovative game strategies, and competition against the best teams, knowing that was the best way to build a program. Indeed, many credit Kleinfelder’s genius in those areas, along with her ability to transform talented athletes into skilled lacrosse players, with making Harvard lacrosse an institution.

The winningest coach in women’s collegiate lacrosse, Kleinfelder has led the Crimson to 12 Ivy League titles and 11 NCAA tournament appearances, including the national title in 1990 won in a dramatic 8-7 victory over Maryland — the first NCAA title won by an Ivy League women’s team in any sport. Over her two decades at Harvard, 28 of her players have gained All-America status, and Harvard lacrosse has had the most Ivy players of the year and first team All-Ivy selections in the League. Kleinfelder’s influence on lacrosse has extended far beyond Cambridge. She designed the first molded stick for women’s lacrosse, and she secured sponsorship for the first Women’s World Cup.

Kleinfelder has held consistently to her coaching philosophy, which she says hasn’t changed much over her career: “It is my belief that sport should be fun first and foremost, and that fun is a byproduct of hard work, trust, respect, and open communication. I firmly believe that lessons of life can be learned on the playing field and life-long friendships cemented. . . . Our program tries to allow each player the freedom to follow her strengths as an athlete and competitor. Hopefully that inspires the commitment and will to grow within each player.”

Anne Sage, who began coaching lacrosse and field hockey at Penn in 1971, also measures success by both the development of the individual and victories in games. “I am shaping the lives of strong and sensitive young women,” she says. “I am not simply producing athletes.” Sage says that “caring and learning as much as I can about my players and their families is what I like best about coaching. I enjoy mentoring players, helping kids both on and off the field.” She thinks too much emphasis today is placed on winning. Instead, she says, “We should never lose perspective that educating kids is our top goal and that wins on the field will take care of themselves.”

Sage developed the field hockey and lacrosse teams from infancy to national status over the past 27 years: remarkable progress from a time when the field hockey team was not even given a key to the practice field, leaving Sage and her players to scale the fence to get onto the field. Since that time, her teams have won nine Ivy League titles combined in field hockey and lacrosse, and appeared in the national semifinal round of both the 1988 NCAA field hockey tournament — held on Penn’s Franklin Field — and the 1982 AIAW lacrosse championship. As of 1998-99, those achievements made Sage the only active Division I coach to reach such levels of achievement in both field hockey and lacrosse.

During her career at Penn, Sage coached ten All-Americans and 31 All-Ivy League players. She also focused on off-the-field activities, introducing women’s lacrosse into the Philadelphia School District, and developing both a seminar to help Penn freshman players make the transition to college and a program to assist seniors in their job search through the Penn field hockey and lacrosse alumnae network.