HWS News
28 January 2025 • Alums • Athletics Coaching Where it All Began By Peter Croatto
The journey of HWS alumni leaders.
Five HWS alumni lead sports teams at their alma mater, a nostalgia-tinged designation that doesn’t make the job automatically easier. Coaching, says Stefan Thompson ’13, is “a profession that throws discomfort your way.”
There may be no better place for Thompson, the head coach of Hobart basketball since 2019, to face such instability than at his alma mater.
The former Hobart basketball star left Geneva for four years after graduation, returning as an assistant in 2017. When he returned for the interview, “those feelings and emotions naturally came back to the surface of me loving his place,” says Thompson. Faces and sites were the same. The focus on recruiting high-character student-athletes had not changed.
He was ready to jump in. He was back home.
Coaching a player, molding a person
When he was a young assistant, Kevin DeWall ’00 would see Head Football Coach Mike Cragg P’13 talking strategy with another HWS coach. It happened so often, DeWall dubbed the legendary coach’s office “the confessional.”
The salon he observed he now regularly participates in.
In 2000, Cragg urged DeWall, who initially considered attending medical school, to join his coaching staff. After three seasons as the head football coach at Endicott College, he succeeded Cragg in 2018.
“There’s a trust, but also a competitive nature that it’s not about saying, ‘I can only do it my way,’” DeWall says. “I think we’re all open-minded for growth on what’s best for right now in this situation in our program.” The athletic programs provide a one-stop shop of ideas and resources, Thompson says. “For us, as coaches, to be able to collaborate, I think, is a huge benefit.”
If a coach wants to get better, DeWall says, all they have to do is knock on a door and listen.
“The way that we uplift and support one another and are happy for each other’s successes is a really special part of William Smith,” says Seraphine Hamilton ’06, the first-year head coach of William Smith’s basketball team and a former assistant coach. “That was really modeled by the coaches when I was here. It’s really grown. It’s just become who we are as William Smith Herons.”
Hamilton, who played basketball and soccer, always felt, “seen and heard and valued in a way that I had never been before. I would imagine that’s how a lot of alumni feel. To be able to grow in a space where people see you and understand you is really important, and I don’t think everyone necessarily gets that experience in their athletic endeavor.” Hamilton now strives to care about her players as individuals.
“One of the lines in our mission statement is creating or modeling values or perspectives that equip students to alter the world as it could be,” she says. “I find that to be a really powerful stance.”
Sophie (Dennis) Riskie ’07 was crushed when her field hockey career ended. Her head coach, Sally Scatton, suggested a career in coaching. After spending a year as a graduate assistant coach and earning a master’s degree, Scatton asked Riskie to return to William Smith to be her assistant where they worked together for the next 13 years. Thankfully, incredible female mentors in the department – Scatton, William Smith Soccer head coach Aliceann Wilber and former William Smith Lacrosse Head Coach Pat Genovese – provided a template.
“You can be yourself and lead in a way that is authentic to you,” explains Riskie, the field hockey team’s head coach since 2021 and an assistant athletic director. Winning was important, “but they cared about people. They care about their athletes, they care about the development.”
An honor and a privilege
When Scott Iklé ’84, Hobart and William Smith’s sailing coach since 1993, was a student, there was no varsity sailing. It was only a club sport at HWS. He turned a nascent, struggling program into an annual powerhouse that has won two national championships.
“The benefit of the HWS education is that it teaches you how to think and how to problem solve,” Iklé says. “That’s what you do every day in coaching. You’re motivated to improve and to be better in putting the pieces of the puzzle together to increase the performance of the athletes that you’re working with.”
DeWall, who led the Statesman to a 9-2 record and a second-round appearance in the NCAA Division III Football Championship in 2024, knows the main goal.
“It’ll always be the relationships; it will always be people,” he says. “Those four years are such defining opportunities to help make future husbands, future fathers, future employees. We’re teaching life lessons through a sport that they love. It’s probably no different than a professor who captivates a student or an internship that gives someone’s heart and energy the right focus. We get to do it through a sport.”
Adds Thompson, “I think that is a really fulfilling part of the job: you get to see a lot of these full-circle moments happen—either for yourself or for others.”
A network of alumni and administrators advocates life beyond the game. “It’s not just the wins and losses, but the relationships and the people you get to work with,” Riskie says.
Iklé has seen this for more than 30 years. Supportive athletics directors like Susan Bassett, Mike Hanna ’68 and Deb Steward, joined by current directors Liz Dennison and Brian Miller, have been a constant. “They have given us the tools to build the programs that we could all coach,” he says, and created a cohesive environment.
“What makes the programs all successful is that no matter what team it is, there’s a sense of family,” Iklé says. “Your immediate family is your team; the extended family is the athletic programs.”
Coaches who played at HWS understand the importance of being valued as people, even after the cheering fades. They agree, passing those lessons to the next generation of student-athletes is a vital part of HWS. “It’s an honor, honestly, and it feels like a real privilege to me to be able to do that,” Hamilton notes.
Top: Hobart Football Head Coach Kevin DeWall '00, William Smith Basketball Head Coach Seraphine Hamilton '06, HWS Sailing Head Coach Scott Iklé '84, William Smith Field Hockey Head Coach Sophie Riskie '07 and Hobart Basketball Head Coach Stefan Thompson '13
