Field-Hockey, Softball
Favorite athlete: Jordan Matthews
Favorite team: Eagles
Favorite memory competing in sports: Having the opportunity to play teams from around the world at the Little League World Series
Most embarrassing/funniest things that has happened while competing in sports: When I was a freshman playing one of my first varsity softball games, I wanted to slide in to second base but I tripped over it instead!
Music on my iPod: Country!
Future plan: To study at Bloomsburg University and hope to be working at a hospital as a radiology technician
Favorite motto: "I came, I saw, I conquered" Julius Caesar
One goal before turning 30: To go skydiving
One thing people don't know about me: I wear my socks inside out on game days.
By Mary Jane Souder
Stephanie Wolf could well be the poster child for the ideal student-athlete.
Just listen to her coaches.
“She is amazing – you want 25 of her,” field hockey coach Kayla Kowalick said. “She’s a leader on and off the field. The girls follow her and they feed off of her.
“She cares about her teammates, she cares about Truman field hockey. She puts in time on and off the field. She’s so coachable. If something is wrong – how do I fix it? So she’s always trying to improve.”
“She’s the kind of kid every coach wants,” softball coach Kyle Hoffman said. “She always wants to be on the field and will do everything she can to help her team win.
“She’s been a leader on our team since she stepped on the field, and she takes the younger kids under her wings. She leads by example. She wants her grades to be right, she does what she needs to do, and she picks up people’s slack. She’s a great kid.”
As impressive as that high praise might be, what’s even more impressive is Wolf’s remarkable attitude and the perspective she brings to sports.
As a senior at Harry S Truman, Wolf’s teams haven’t always had the easiest time competing in the large school SOL National Conference. This year’s field hockey team has won just one game, so it would be easy to understand if Wolf – a standout athlete - would be frustrated.
She’s not.
As a matter of fact, playing for Truman is a point of pride to the senior captain who is a four-year starter in field hockey and will be the same in softball this spring.
“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” Wolf said. “People I talk to are like – why do you play there?
“I tell them, ‘It’s my home. I want to be here, no matter if we fail 100 games or we win 100 games. Whatever the case is, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I wouldn’t go anywhere else. I love my coaches, I love the girls, I love my school.”
Wolf has been an impact player since she walked on the field as a freshman, earning a starting position in the defensive backfield in hockey before moving to the midfield last year and anchoring center field for the softball team since ninth grade.
Hoffman can still vividly recall seeing Wolf on the softball diamond for the first time the summer after eighth grade.
“I set up a pitching machine on our field, and she was hitting balls over the fence, one right after the other,” the Tigers’ softball coach said. “I told (then coach) Gretchen Cammiso, ‘You have to come see this.’
“We were excited to have her in the program. She’s just been great. She’s been a leader on our team since she stepped on the field.”
It’s not a whole lot different in hockey where Wolf anchors the team at both ends of the field as the center midfielder.
“She’ll swing the ball from the left to the right, she’ll dribble past defenders and cross it,” Kowalick said. “She’s a really strong athlete, and she plays with all her heart. In school, she gives her all too.”
A member of the school’s Varsity Club, Wolf takes her responsibility as leader and role model seriously.
“I realized when they elected me as their captain – they really do look up to me,” she said. “Just the questions they ask, the little things they ask me to show them – it’s just weird to think people look up to me. It’s a new feeling.
It may be a new feeling but her positive approach is not new.
“Even though we come out (in field hockey) and play these girls that are playing year round, are really good and going to some really good schools, we come to practice every day, we practice so hard, we plan for these games, and no one ever gives up,” Wolf said. “No one ever says, ‘Okay, we’re playing this team. We’re going to lose, so what the heck.’ Every single day no matter who we’re playing – whether it’s the top team or one of the lower teams, we come out with the same exact energy and focus.
“Some games we fail, some games we win, but we still come back the next day. It’s just the bond with the girls that keeps me going. I love sports, I love meeting new people. It keeps me busy, it keeps me focused, and it just makes me the person I am today.”
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Wolf has been playing sports since her earliest recollection with t-ball a natural choice for a youngster who received a softball glove, bat and ball for her birthday.
“It started in my backyard with my dad,” she said. “I played just for fun.
“I didn’t realize I was actually good at the sport until I was maybe 13. Coaches were e-mailing me about travel ball. I thought, ‘Wow, this is something I could really do.’”
She joined the softball travel circuit, initially with the Philly Flash and then the Philly Spirit. She is now a member of the Lady Lions out of Lower Bucks County and in her own words has invested “tons of time” in the sport.
“Even when it’s cold and winter, we’re still inside, we’re still working out, we’re still in the batting cages,” she said. “During the fall, I go from school to field hockey and then softball practice or school then softball practice for school and then (travel) softball practice afterwards.
“Now I’m juggling a job in between. It’s pretty crazy.”
Last spring, Wolf – who started every game – batted .362 with a .464 on-base percentage and had a team-leading five home runs, earning second team all-league honors in the tough National Conference.
“It’s truly been a unique experience to coach her in two sports and watch her succeed and excel on both fields,” said Hoffman, who also is an assistant field hockey coach.
Field hockey didn’t enter the picture until middle school.
“All my older friends played it,” Wolf said. “I was actually going to try out for the soccer team because I played that when I was little.
“My friends were like, ‘Try something new. It’s fun,’ so I gave it a shot, and I loved it. I loved running, and I fell in love with it.”
Wolf remains passionate about hockey and faces the quandary of which sport to play at the collegiate level.
“It’s always been softball since I was little – I’m going to play softball in college, I’m going to go somewhere for softball, and I was really focused on softball,” she said. “But then as I became a senior and had to focus on my future and what I want to be I kind of had to take a step back from softball and find a school that had my major, that I loved and just wasn’t all about the sport, which was a change for me.
“It’s weird because I’ve always looked for schools for softball, but in the back of my head, I’m thinking, ‘Maybe I could play field hockey.’ I started talking to my field hockey coach. I’ve been looking around and seeing if the school I like has a field hockey team and maybe emailing the coach. It’s different, it’s a change.”
“This year is opening her eyes,” Kowalick said. “I think she could play field hockey in college, and we’re trying to get her to lean that way.”
While Wolf is uncertain about her choice of sport, she is firm on her major – medical imaging/radiology.
“I’ve always wanted to do something in the medical field,” she said. “I always wanted to put my scrubs on and go to the hospital, but I didn’t want to be a nurse.
“My sister-in-law majored in medical imaging, and she’s working at St. Mary’s and just her stories. I could still put my scrubs on, I’m still heading to the hospital, and I’m still one-on-one with patients, so it was just a little bit different, and that really caught my eye. That’s what I’ve been zoned in on.”
Bloomsburg is at the top of Wolf’s college list.
“Bloomsburg has a really good program and they have really good connections with St. Mary’s and local hospitals around me, so that’s kind of what I’m aiming at. That’s my number one right now,” she said.
But for now, Wolf’s focus is on her final high school season, and one thing for certain – her approach to playing the sports she loves won’t change.
“I go out there every game with the same attitude, the same mentality,” Wolf said. “Whether I come out with a win or I come out with a loss, I know that I still have my team, I still have my school, and we have another game ahead of us.”
And that’s vintage Stephanie Wolf. It’s not lip service, it’s who she is.
