Long-time field hockey coach at Fayetteville-Manlius, Cynthia Vulcano, has announced her retirement from the program after more than 15 years and multiple sectional championship wins as both a player and coach at F-M.
“I guess you can say, ‘I bleed green,’” said Vulcano, a 1982 graduate of F-M High School and a sectional championship player in the 1980 and 1981 field hockey teams, coached by Deb Petzold. Vulcano also acted as coach for the 2013 and 2015 sectional championship F-M Field Hockey teams.
Vulcano started out her career as a field hockey referee in 1999, but said she was interested in coaching because her interactions with players in this position were only telling them what they did wrong.
In 2000, a girls lacrosse coaching position opened up at F-M and Vulcano took it. Eventually, a modified field hockey coach position opened up, and she coached both sports for a few years.
“But field hockey was my passion. It’s just such a cool sport … Growing up as a player and then coaching was definitely something I’m glad I got to do,” said Vulcano.
Vulcano moved her way to coaching junior varsity and eventually varsity. Growing and building the program was one thing Vulcano said she focused on that she believes lead to the success of the team in the past few years.
“In 2005, we didn’t have enough players. So the team went on a run to the neighborhoods of some girls we thought might be a good fit on a team to recruit them … We won four games that year but the goal was to build the team to become stronger,” said Vulcano.
Building the program consisted of offering opportunities for players to attend conditioning camps and to expand the modified program to include two teams, one for each of the district’s middle schools, said Vulcano.
All of this program building eventually paid off, and after a long wait that dated back to 1989, F-M Field Hockey had its best stretch in Vulcano’s coaching during the last three years, winning Section III Class A titles in 2013 and 2015.
“I think the most rewarding part of this job was to interact with the girls and see some of them grow from modified players all the way through,” said Vulcano. “I’ve learned that no matter what, at the end of the day if you have a strong team where everyone is there for each other, things will work out.”
In her retirement, Vulcano said she hopes to spend some time at her family’s summer home in Maine, something she hasn’t been able to do because of her involvement in the program. Although Vulcano is officially retiring, she said she intends to still be involved and attend as many field hockey games as she can in the future.
“I’m definitely going to miss it, but I’m not completely going to be gone,” Vulcano said. “I hope the program continues to grow and gets even bigger.”
