Tennis
Favorite athlete: Since I like the Phillies, I would say the Phillie Phanatic. I think he brings happiness to all the fans
Favorite team: Phillies
Favorite memory competing in sports: Running out with my team for the Homecoming Pep Rally this year
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while playing sports: Everyone thinks my doubles partner and I are twins because we are both redheads, have fair skin and blue eyes
Music on playlist: “High Hopes” and “Titanium” and “Stronger” and “I’m on Top of the World” and “This is me”
Future plans: Go to college and become a physical therapist
Words to live by: “You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, smarter than you think and loved more than you know.”
One goal before turning 30: Have a good job where I can help others with similar medical conditions.
One thing people don’t know about me: Besides playing tennis, I love to run. I ran my first 5K when I was 12. My cousin Carol and I run the Skeleton Skurry 5K every year. It is so much fun.
By GORDON GLANTZ
Homecoming, senior year.
It can hold different meanings for different athletes, especially seniors.
For North Penn’s Dana Coakley, it marked the end of a wondrous journey within the North Penn tennis program.
Also a runner -- and repeat medalist -- in just about every local 5K she can find, Homecoming for tennis was a metaphorical finish line.
“It was just the seniors who got to run out,” she said. “Everything occurred to me, everything I’ve overcome and all the challenges and all that I accomplished. It was just a special memory to me.”
Coakely chooses not to dwell on her challenges, which stem from suffering a stroke in-utero (at birth).
She had been in occupational therapy since six months old and didn’t really come to appreciate the importance of it until she started playing tennis in seventh grade, at age 12.
“My mom wanted me to get into a sport,” said Coakley. “She thought it would be good for me. I started playing tennis and I’ve been playing ever since then.”
Running cross country would have been another option, but she stuck it out with tennis – and is glad she did, considering she scratches her running itch outside of school.
“I’ve always liked to run,” said Coakley. “I’ve run a lot of 5Ks and I run almost daily. I love running. It’s kind of my thing.
“I guess I did consider it (as a school sport) but tennis was cool to me and it was good for me. There were some challenges to it, but I just thought it was cool and then I began to get pretty good at it.”
Making It
How good did she get at tennis?
Well, good enough to show up at tryouts for the North Penn tennis team, coached by Renee Di Domizio.
The idea was first planted by her tennis coach at the Philadelphia Sports Club, Fred Perrin.
Said Coakley: “When I was going to the Philadelphia Sports Club, I would go, like, two or three times per week for tennis practices. My coach there is the one who really wanted me to try out for the North Penn tennis team.”
Di Domizio was immediately impressed with what she saw in Coakley.
“I have had this young lady since she was a freshman,” said the coach. “She walked onto the court and I said, ‘Well, I’m not going to cut her.’ And she has since worked her way up from the bottom of the JV squad, while perfecting her technique, and being able to be competitive.”
Coakley has primarily been a JV player in a competitive program at a large school, but she holds a rare distinction of being unblemished at the varsity level after teaming up with Helene Kim in a victorious doubles match against CB West in her junior year.
“I put her in a varsity match last year,” said Di Domizio. “She did really well. I just wanted her to experience one of those matches.
“I said to myself, ‘You know what, I’m pulling Dana up for this match,’ I said to her, ‘Dana, you are going to play in this varsity match today.’ And they won.”
Coakley found herself adjusting to the pace of the varsity level.
It was difficult, but not impossible.
“It was challenging,” she said. “My partner was a regular varsity player, and she really helped me to win the match. It was a fun match.”
For the most part, though. Coakley has been teamed up with her stunt double, fellow senior Leanne Leighton.
“We just work really well together,” said Coakley. “All the other coaches ask if we’re twins. She has red curly hair, and I have straight red hair, but we still look exactly alike.”
Secret Weapon
It was with the help of Perrin that Coakley developed her famed “one-armed serve” that many others have tried, and found impossible, to duplicate.
She said: “People that I play against say, ‘Oh my God, you’re just so cool.’ My friends and coaches will try to do it, and they will say, ‘I don’t know how you do this.’ I don’t give them tips or tricks or anything, because I really don’t even know how I do it.”
Although the serve has become so engrained that it is difficult for her to explain, she tried.
“I put the ball on the middle triangle part (of the racket),” she said. “I throw it up, and then I hit it across (the net). A little after COVID, I started to get better. My coach at the Philadelphia Sports Club helped me to come up with it. He looked it up with tennis professionals to make sure it was legal.”
Legal, yes, and lethal.
Most importantly, it is a testament to her fortitude.
“She’s just an amazing young lady,” said Di Domizio. “With her right hand, she holds the racket and she has the ball with it, too. She has her two fingers with the ball. She throws it up at the same time she is pulling the racket up and she serves the ball.
“It’s amazing. They worked this technique out where she holds the ball and the racket in one hand. She kind of flips it up and serves it. Some kids can’t even serve with two hands. It’s a thing of beauty to see, actually.”
Amazing? Yes.
Surprising? No.
Said Di Domizio: “I have always been amazed. She’s always on me, ‘Who’s my partner going to be, Coach D? Where am I playing in this lineup?’ She’s very ready to get out there and play. She loves to compete. She’s very focused.”
That focus has included becoming a true student of the game.
“She has gained, throughout the years, the experience and the knowledge on how to play doubles,” said Di Domizio. “Other girls might have skills, but you have to be a smart player out there, too.”
Debt of Gratitude
The lifetime of physical therapy has become part and parcel with a series of surgeries at CHOP, where the personnel have become like a second family.
“I don’t think I will be where I am today without them,” said Coakley. “It helps me to be at my best and to work to my full capacity and they are just really special to me.”
And physical therapy is now anything but the chore it once was to her.
“I just had three major surgeries, about a year or two ago, and I went for therapy for two or three months after the surgeries,” said Coakley. “They kind of give me exercises to do at home. I haven’t gone that often lately but, when I go, it’s as much as once or twice a week.
“When I was younger, I didn’t really care much for physical therapy. As I got older, I realized that I wanted to fix things because people were treating me differently.”
The physical work on her own includes finding her own workouts on YouTube.
“I’ll do any kind of workout I can find – walking, running, all that kind of stuff,” said Coakley, who said er activities include yoga and using an exercise bike. “It just gets me into my day.”
Career Path
While she has bounced around, in terms of possible career paths, Coakley has come to embrace the obvious: Occupational Therapy.
“I wanted to be biomedical engineer, which is totally different,” said Coakley. “I went to an open house recently, and I was talking to a guy about occupational therapy. It just seemed so interesting.
“My aunt (Janet Parkinson) was an occupational therapist, and I know a lot of other occupational therapists, and I just think it is the perfect career for me.”
Coakley, who works extended part-time hours at Giant, is an “A-B” student at North Penn and plans to start off nailing down her prerequisites at Montgomery County Community College and will then be taking it from there when it comes to her desired career path.
She said: “I love to try to help other people like myself who have the same type of issues. I love to help them to understand that it will be OK and that they are doing great and can do whatever they want to do.”
Circle of Love
Coakley is surrounded by a network of a loving family, extended and immediate, and credits them for their inspiration along the way.
“All of my grandparents (Paula and Herbert Mahon, Dot Dunning),” she said before listing her mother (Joanne), father (Tom), step-mother (Colleen), step-siblings (Sammi and A.J.), aunts, uncles, cousins, coaches, friends and teammates. “A few years ago, my one grandfather (Don Dunning) passed away. A lot of stuff, I don’t just do it for myself but also for my grandparents. I want them to see me accomplish goals for myself. I especially do it for my grandfather who passed away, because we were really close.”
This all may explain why she is always among the team leaders in fundraising events, which have led to such goodies as a new ball machine for practice.
“It shows that she has a lot of support all around, and that she helps to support her team,” said Di Domizio. “The other girls do well, too, but Dana’s support system has been amazing.”
But Coakley’s imprint on the program will extend beyond that, said Di Domizio.
“I can’t walk into every season thinking it’s going to be a great season, just because you have this person or that person who are really good athletes. Every season is different,” said Di Domizio. “She kind of brings you back to reality. There are others things, other than winning.
“Her drive has been amazing. Other girls, if they aren’t succeeding and want to throw in the towel, they see someone like Dana with these other physical challenges and still working really hard to stay competitive. They all see her. They all see her struggles, and they all see her still out there every day. The whole team is really amazed by her.
“I give her a lot of credit, just for sticking it out and competing with the girls who are physically stronger. She is very positive out there, and she just loves tennis as a sport she can compete in.
“She has moved up the ladder. She has worked her way up from the bottom of JV. That’s an accomplishment, really, because she is competing with new people coming in.”
While she was always pushed by newcomers, Coakley has stayed within herself and relished all the moments, culminating with Homecoming.
As such, making the brave decision to come out for the tennis team comes with no regrets.
“I am really happy I did it,” she said. “I loved just meeting new people and helping them out and playing with them.”
