‘Field Hockey is Essentially my Life’: New Coach Leads Varsity Team

August 22, 2025
• Needham Varsity Field Hockey has a new head coach for the first time in 14 years. 

Following the departure of longtime coach Steph Magni, Needham has hired Tessa Taylor to lead the varsity field hockey team.

After four years as the assistant director of Needham Youth Field Hockey and spending the previous season as assistant coach at Buckingham Browne & Nichols School — a private school in Cambridge — Taylor is prepared to step into her first varsity head coach position. She also spent two years coaching the sport at Pollard Middle School, where she led some of the same players that will be on the team this fall.

“The juniors I actually coached my first year at Pollard, they were in eighth grade,” Taylor said. “So, it’s really cool, I can’t believe that they’re juniors now.”

Taylor grew up in Connecticut and played for Haddam-Killingworth High School, where she was a member of a state championship team her freshman year. She went on to play Division 1 field hockey at Radford University in Virginia, where she competed against some of the best programs in the country. She even spent two years as a referee but found that it wasn’t her passion.

“When I was reffing, in my head, I kept wanting to coach these kids. So, I was like, ‘O.K., I think I need to be coaching,‘” she said.

After helping grow the Needham youth program, which was awarded USA Field Hockey’s National Club of the Year in 2023, stepping into the head coaching role now felt right. 

“Field hockey is essentially my life,” Taylor said, “and to be a part of this huge growing program and to see it now filtering into the high school is just so rewarding and so amazing to see.” 

On the sideline, Taylor emphasizes the importance of staying positive. 

“I don’t see a point in any negativity. I want to instill that in the girls, positivity all the time, with our teammates, with the opposing team and also the referees,” she said. “I want to keep things very positive. We are not going to be the team that’s yelling at each other, at the other team, at the refs, no. There will be none of that.”

And, it’s not always about winning for the first time head coach.

“I told them this morning, I want them to make mistakes. That’s how we learn and that’s how you get better,” she said. “If you’re not making mistakes, to me it says you’re not really pushing yourself. If I see them make improvements on things that we practiced, that’s a win for me. It only means we’ll get better.”

Though she’s only had a few days with the team this early into the season, she said she’s been impressed by the group and is hopeful about the upcoming year.

“Traditionally, they do the timed mile right away on the first day, and the girls blew us away. We had their times from last year and almost every single player got less time on their mile than the previous year,” she said. “So right off the bat, it’s like, O.K., they’re taking this seriously, they’re coming in a little bit more prepared, or as prepared as they should. It’s gonna be an awesome varsity team, but also an awesome JV and JV2 team. We have a lot of talent.”

Hear more from Taylor in the video below:

The story above ran as part of the Needham Channel News, a weekly newscast airing on The Needham Channel every Thursday at 7:30pm. The Needham Channel News can be found on the Community Channel: Comcast 9, Astound 15 and Verizon 29. Most Thursdays it also can be viewed on our HD Channel on Verizon 2129, Astound 613 and streaming on this site.