Stuarts Draft hires Wright as new coach

By Robert Sisk

Published: September 17, 2008

Stuarts Draft High School has announced that Caroline Wright will be the head girls varsity soccer coach during the 2009 season.

Wright, a native of Alexandria who graduated with bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Mary Baldwin College, has served as the Cougars’ JV coach for the past five seasons.

“I joke I’m the old lady of the program and its time to move up,” Wright said.

Wright currently is a special education teacher at Shelburne Middle School in Staunton.

“I tell everyone that I have been coaching at Draft longer than teaching at Staunton, so that makes it OK,” Wright joked.

On Friday, Wright was introduced to the players before the announcement was made public. She told the team that they were part of a larger program that needed to focus on building talent from the lower ranks.

“… [W]e are only good as the talent we have,” she said. “It’s important to work with the middle school and get the word out that we are trying to build something at Draft. Get them in the system at eighth grade.”

Wright played as a goalkeeper for Mary Baldwin while earning her bachelor’s degree. She graduated in 1998 and left Staunton. In 2002, she returned to work on her master’s and began coaching at Stuarts Draft as an assistant JV coach during the program’s infancy.

“The program was very new,” she said. “We still had T-shirts and [recreation] league shorts. It’s been fun to see the program grow. It makes it fun when people support the program.”

After coaching the JV team for five seasons, Wright thinks that it will be easier for her and the players to adapt.

“The girls who are seniors, I had as eighth graders,” she said. “It’s full circle on the other side of their high school playing career.”