As Azure aged, her relationships with her coaches grew stronger, especially at the collegiate level. She gained a "much more personal relationship with all of them" because of the level of commitment and also because she was growing up.
Azure also had very different relationships with her male and female coaches. Her only male coach in college was "kind of goofy and laid back, not a stereotypical screamer." He was much "softer" than her female coaches. Male coaches in high school were that stereotypical role of being dictatorial and strict. "This changed things, I was much more closed, I wouldn’t talk as much, wasn’t myself as much, wasn’t open to their ideas as much.”
Coach Davey started her coaching career with the Utica College Women's Lacrosse and Soccer teams directly after her graduation from Hamilton College in 2000. Her soccer team in 2002 improved its record from 3-12 in the previous season, to 8-7 making them one of the most improved teams in Division III. This was an early challenge because she was coaching girls that were older than her and had to establish guidelines for everyone to follow. "I had to adhere to [the guidelines] myself more so than an older coach may have." Instead of "do what I say, not what I do, I had to actually do it too." Azure says that it was a huge growth period that she learned many valuable lessons from.
Developing a coaching philosophy is one of the most important aspects of coaching. Azure developed hers from a college coach that she respected, "where a team had done well with her as a director, as an orchestrator, it made a great deal of difference because she really personalized it, I think for anyone to really buy into a program or buy into a coaching philosophy and a skill set, you can’t just teach a skill set without people wanting to buy into you personally.” “I care about what I’m doing and therefore they tend to care, they tend to buy in.”
In 2003 Azure came to Elmira College to become the assistant lacrosse and field hockey coach for the 2003-2004 season, making a huge impact on her players and the teams during just one year. This was difficult for Azure to make the change from head coach to assistant, and took some adjusting. "Coach Macca (head lacrosse and field hockey coach) was very respectful and gave me a lot of latitude, that was also a growing experience, it was very good for me. I’m a little bit arrogant so sometimes it’s nice to force yourself to have to sit back and say, this person is in charge, you can learn from this person, what are you going to learn from this person?” "I’m very respectful though, and it became an overall easy transition because of the person that [Coach Macca] was."
Coach Davey became the field hockey coach at Elmira, but had never actually played the sport. It was a challenge at first, but she handled the situation with an overwhelming sense of confidence. "I was a little bit nervous going in, but you have to go into every situation with confidence, and a lot of the same theories apply that are in soccer, that are in lacrosse, that are in any sport." "I was nervous, I would be lying if I didn’t admit that, but focus on the relationships, once you establish those you can really insert yourself with the technical aspect of the sport."
One of the reasons that Azure loves coaching so much is because it gives you such a great opportunity to connect with athletes and really make a diference in someone's life. "I think you can always relate to someone if you have an open means of communication." This theme of communication can be found in many of Azure's beliefs about life; she really believes that if you can communicate with someone then you can make a difference.
“You remember your feelings, you might not remember exactly the game you played in, or exactly the situation, or exactly how you felt after the loss or win, but you remember feeling, you remember when you learned something or got something right, when the group came together, things that are intangible. That, to me, is something that sticks in my mind, that’s the relationship. If you can relate on that level then the sport will come, that’s easy, the skills will come, that relationship is the ability to teach and want to teach and want people to buy in."
Looking back on her entire career so far involving sports, Azure says that her favorite time has been “coaching teams that I actually see improve, there’s a beginning and an end to it, there’s a result, it’s ongoing but it’s a result. I came to Elmira to a school where a team had never won a game, and now this year their vying for the conference title. Certainly that isn’t just me, there’s a lot of people that were involved in that but to be part of a program that gets to that point is just awesome.”
A good coach can create positive
relationships with their players, but also it is someone that is really "committed
to the overall project, someone that
chips in and really believes in the project, but isn’t
going to smother you with it, you can’t
force-feed it to people, so as long as you’re talking to people, that’s
what makes a difference." A coach also has to be able to identify with
everyone, regardless of any possible circumstance.
Azure is most proud of the "relationships I’ve cultivated, people that can call you two years later without hesitating. When our group told her that she was the first person that came to mind for this project, she said “perfect, that’s what I’m proud of, that’s it, that’s just awesome.”
Azure hopes to return to
coaching sometime in the future because it meant so much to her. "In some
way I will insert coaching again."
The greatest lesson that Azure has learned from coaching is "personal growth, being willing to accept others, every year you get a whole new group of people that you have to insert with this other group of people, you have to have tolerance, understanding, cohesion, the ability to learn and grow, talk with one another, understand one another, you’re all working towards something, it isn’t forced, it develops by itself, some things cultivate themselves."