THERE ARE FEW things in life more precious than having your first child and two High Point University head coaches have experienced that joy in the last two years. Women's basketball head coach Chelsea Banbury had her son in the summer of 2018 before she joined the Panthers and women's lacrosse head coach Lyndsey Boswell welcomed a daughter into the world shortly before the lacrosse regular season started in December 2019. Both have found a way to spend time with their families and take care of their children while still leading their HPU teams to success on the field and court.

Banbury had her son, Jackson, in the summer of 2018, before her final season as the associate head coach at Florida Gulf Coast University. A June birthday for Jackson was the opportune time for a coach of a winter sport to have her first child.
 
"It was nice because I was able to take my maternity leave during the summer," Banbury said. "I didn't go out recruiting that summer and I was able to take the time to adjust and get acclimated to being a mother."
 
Banbury took a total of nine weeks of leave from FGCU from early June to August, getting back to work right before the team came back to campus, allowing her to spend as much time with Jackson as possible without missing any of the work in-season.
 
Boswell did not have the luxury of having her first child in the offseason but that didn't faze the 10-year head coach one bit. Between becoming an aunt at a very young age, being given the task of creating a lacrosse program at a Division I school at the age of 26, and everything in-between, Boswell is used to having a lot on her plate, so when she found out she was pregnant last April there was never a doubt in her mind that she would coach the following season, no matter what it took. 
 
"The due date was December 12th and I had Terese December 15th and from the time I found out I was pregnant I pretty much knew I was going to be delivering right before the season if everything went as planned. We were excited about her arrival but maybe not about the timing of her arrival," Boswell had to say.
 
Just 21 days after the birth of her newborn daughter, Boswell was up and back at the helm of the program she birthed 10 years prior. She never complained nor made excuses, she just took on the challenge and gave it one-hundred and ten percent, something she's done her whole life. For the most part, having to intertwine the roles of mother and head coach was seamless but Boswell admits that it wasn't always perfect. 
 
There was an adjustment period where the head coach had to think outside of the box and figure out what would work for her even if that meant bringing Terese to practice or early-season meetings. One of the more daunting adjustments that she had to make was being more conscious of her schedule and leaving work at a decent hour so she could go home to nurse. 
 
"I'm not used to leaving work at a specific time. Sometimes my days are 12 hours, sometimes eight hours and sometimes 15 hours," Boswell continued. "If there's more film to watch, we watch it. Now I have to plan my day around her eating schedule and we don't miss meals. I'm used to missing meals as a coach but this little girl doesn't miss meals. That would be the biggest, making sure she's fed before I leave the house."
 
Even with all the seen and unforeseen obstacles that came along the way, Boswell has taken them in stride and has gotten to a point of comfortability with it all. She admittedly knows that this type of situation may not be perfect for most, but it's allowed her to go about it the way she wanted to so it's perfect for her.
 
 
WHILE BANBURY HAD more time to adjust to being a mother before jumping into a head coach position, it was the jump from assistant to head coach that proved more of a challenge for Banbury. She knew she wanted to be a head coach before she welcomed Jackson into the world. The timing of having him so soon to the transition of becoming a head coach wasn't exactly planned, but the opening at High Point was the opportunity Banbury was looking for.
 
"The timing of having him and becoming a head coach wasn't planned out but the opportunity at High Point was a great one that I couldn't pass up," she said of her current job.
 
Making the adjustment from an assistant coach to a head coach is a big step for anybody. Add in the exciting challenge of being a relatively new mother and you get Banbury's transition just before Jackson's first birthday.
 
"As the head coach your brain never shuts off," Banbury said. "Once practice is done you're on to planning the next one so there's a lot more behind the scenes work. You have to be on your 'A-game' since you're running it and that was a bit of an adjustment."
 
Not only did Banbury have the transition of going from an assistant to a head coach, she and her family had to move from Florida to North Carolina. Luckily, Banbury had a lot of support to help her with her transition, first and foremost from her husband, Greg. Greg has not only supported Banbury as a husband and father, but also as a fan of HPU, coming to as many games, home and away, that he can.
 
"There weren't any big difficulties [with moving] and a lot of that is because of so much support from Greg," Banbury said of her husband. "He has taken a break from his career a bit because we didn't know any sitters here and our biggest thing was that Jackson is taken care of. Greg has really stepped up in a big way supporting me in my career and taking care of Jackson."
 
Banbury also had a lot of support from her newly hired coaching staff, a staff she had gotten to know quite well over the years with three of them having played for her while she was an assistant at FGCU. While her assistants didn't know Jackson yet, they knew Banbury and her husband, which helped ease Banbury's transition even more.
 
"A familiar staff was definitely something that I wanted. I had been around them and I knew them more than just a recommendation from someone, plus they knew what I wanted to teach on the court. The first thing I did when I took the job was hire a staff that I knew would support me and help me as a first-year head coach."
 
Greg isn't always able to come on the road with the team when Banbury decides to take Jackson with her, and sometimes the coaching staff needs some time alone to come up with the next game's gameplan. That's where players stepped up to help their new coach out, specifically senior Olivia VanSlooten and sophomore Skyler Curran.
 
"We have some girls on our team that are just drawn to little kids. Liv loves kids and so does Sky - she has a ton of nieces and nephews. Them helping out just kind of happened organically. Those two love kids and developed a relationship with him. They enjoy having him around and it really lightens the mood and kind of brings you down to Earth and helps you realize that at the end of the day, basketball is just a game."
 
Not only did her players help her with Jackson on the road, they also spent time with him at home, filling in as a sitter to give Banbury and Greg a chance to have a couple of date nights and spend some time with just the two of them.
 
Despite having a supportive staff and a loving family, there were still some difficulties for Banbury with adjusting to motherhood while being a coach. Since Jackson is not old enough to be in school yet, Banbury tries to bring him and Greg on as many road trips as she can, but that hasn't always been the case.
 
"Last year, when Jackson was so young, the first time leaving him was tough," Banbury said her first road trip with FGCU in her final season. "You get used to being around him at home and then you have to go on the road and you're gone for two or three days. Getting used to being away from him was the hardest part."
 
 
AFTER SPENDING THE last decade successfully fostering a culture of family and building a lacrosse program from scratch, Boswell credits that same culture and those around her for making her transition just as seamless.
 
"I put all my attention to building this program in the first part of it so that later in the program I could have the flexibility to have a family," Boswell said of her team. "So, because our culture is intact, we have a great staff, we have great players, we have a great support system there hasn't been a lot of stress having to take time away from work here and there because everything is pretty much running itself at this point."
 
For that reason, it's easy to see why the parents of the team threw Lyndsey a baby shower last fall unprompted, or why each of the players each gifted Terese their favorite childhood book or even why her staff is willing to take on more work without hesitation.
 
The same love, support, and loyalty that Boswell has shown those surrounding her was now being reciprocated when she needed it the most. Although she was a bit uncertain of how a lot of her players would initially react, she was hopeful they would embrace her new daughter. Boswell came to find she couldn't be more right, as the team truly wrapped their arms around "Baby T" as they called her.
 
One of the players that both helped the nickname catch on amongst the group and welcome the three-month-old was senior goalkeeper Jill Rall. Whether that be carrying Terese around hotel lobbies on away trips or holding Baby T on long bus rides up and down the east coast, Rall's love and affinity for children is evident and it's clear to see why she plans to teach after graduation, just as VanSlooten plans to on the women's basketball side. Although Lyndsey received a lion's share of support from those in her immediate circle, it also came from those watching from afar, including Banbury.
 
"Chelsea has, and continues to, give me some advice. It doesn't help that we're not in the same building but every time we are [together], our babies come up and being a mother in the midst of a season comes up. We've tackled it similarly, she's done some of the same things I have - for example, nursing which is a full-time job in itself. Making time and space for ourselves as we go through that challenge of being a nursing mother. She's great, she's about a year ahead of me with this process, so she's given me some really good advice and opinions."


THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC had an impact on both the women's basketball and lacrosse seasons, ending both prematurely. Basketball had its conference tournament canceled before the Panthers could play a game in it and lacrosse saw its season end just five games in and well before conference play was scheduled to begin. While both coaches would rather be competing for championships than sitting at home, there is a silver lining for both. They can both spend time at home with their children and families, building relationships in the one thing that will always be there even after sports are no longer as prominent in their lives: Family.