{"id":8709,"date":"2020-02-24T17:02:28","date_gmt":"2020-02-24T22:02:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/?p=8709"},"modified":"2020-02-24T17:02:28","modified_gmt":"2020-02-24T22:02:28","slug":"changing-the-face-of-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/changing-the-face-of-football\/","title":{"rendered":"Changing the Face of Football"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The\nlove of a sports team can be inherited; what we do with it is up to us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing\nup, Sophia Lewin absorbed her father\u2019s tales of the 1970s Oakland Raiders,\ntough-as-nails competitors who were nonconformists in every sense of the word.\nSurely those stories played a part in molding Lewin, a self-described underdog\nwho, in true trailblazer fashion, refuses to adhere to convention. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2019 Monmouth grad just finished her first year as receivers\ncoach at Hudson Catholic High School in Jersey City, New Jersey. In February,\nshe was hired as an offensive quality control coach for Princeton University\u2019s\nfootball team. Uncomfortable with her presence on the sideline? Too bad. \u201cI\nbelieve in me,\u201d says Lewin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like any first job, Hudson Catholic presented challenges. Yes,\nthere was a 4\u20137 season, but Lewin also had to understand the unseen details of\na football game, such as substitutions and managing playing time. There was\nalso an unanticipated emotional component: The players came to her with\npersonal problems. That\u2019s where her sociology degree became an asset. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, it was a promising start for the 22-year-old, who admits\nshe has a long way to go. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnce you feel like you\u2019ve made it, I think that\u2019s when you\u2019re\ndeclining,\u201d says Lewin. \u201cI just want to continue to be a student of the game. I\nwant to continue to learn.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Lewin, who hopes to coach in the NFL one day, stays in regular contact with Lori Locust, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers\u2019 assistant defensive line coach.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Lewin\u2019s curiosity raged even before she arrived at Monmouth in\n2015. While attending Wayne Hills High School, she applied to be the team manager.\nThe head coach, Wayne Demiko , asked Lewin if she had any questions. Yes, she\nsaid. What\u2019s the difference between a gap scheme and a zone scheme in run\nblocking? \u201cHe got me right away,\u201d says Lewin. The two hit it off, and Demiko\nlet Lewin shadow the coaching staff for two seasons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monmouth is where Lewin, a student assistant on the Hawks\nfootball team for three seasons, became fluent in football, connecting the\nmyriad strategies with what she saw on the field. Her biggest ally was\nthen-wide receivers coach (and current pass game coordinator\/quarterbacks\ncoach) TJ DiMuzio, a mentor who improved Lewin\u2019s football IQ and instilled confidence.\nHe brought her into receivers meetings. They watched game film. Eventually,\nDiMuzio allowed his mentee to coach his players individually in practices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lewin also found two steadying influences\u2014and future friends\u2014 in\nthe classroom at Monmouth. Professors Johanna E. Foster and Jennifer McGovern\nexposed Lewin to new ideas about gender, sex, and race, which were invaluable\nlast season as she got her players\u2014high school boys with sometimes troubled\nbackgrounds\u2014to open up. \u201cI think it\u2019s important that you\u2019re vulnerable and that\nyou let people in. You can\u2019t be afraid to say, \u2018Hey, I\u2019m having a really bad\nday,\u2019 or, \u2018I\u2019m not OK,\u2019 or, \u2018This happened in my house,\u2019\u201d says Lewin. \u201cYou have\nto tell me. I\u2019m not going to read your mind and know. I\u2019ve got to know you\u2019re\nnot OK. Otherwise I\u2019m not doing my job, and you\u2019re certainly not going to do\nyours.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not the approach of Belichick, Parcells, and fabled\nold-school coaches. Yes, Sophia Lewin wants to win. And she wants to coach in\nthe NFL. But there\u2019s no rush. Her goals lie \u201cbeyond the title,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s\nto try to help people be really good human beings.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That includes herself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I\u2019m in a position to help young people do the things they want to do,\u201d she says, \u201cI\u2019m never going to tell them that they cannot do something because of something irrelevant to the job.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sophia Lewin doesn\u2019t look like your average football coach. That\u2019s because she\u2019s not. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":8712,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"image_focus":"","hide_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-back"],"thumbnail":"\"\"","catString":"The Back","issue":"Spring 2020","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8709"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13906,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8709\/revisions\/13906"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}