Julia Dessart is a little busier than normal as a coach. She’s also busy making a little history.
Not only is she an assistant coach on the women’s hockey team at Lawrence, but this year, her second at the school, marks the first time she’s also working as an assistant on the men’s team.
Some might go crazy doing both. Dessart embraces it.
“It’s a lot of fun,” Dessart said.
She typically helps out at practice at some point each week with the men’s team and is on the bench for the Vikings’ games when time allows.
Being involved in the men’s game isn’t anything new for Dessart as she played on a boys team when she was in high school.
“I haven’t been a part of it since high school,” Dessert said. “But high to college is a big jump and I’ve had to learn to get back into it and learn the pace of the game on the men’s side again.”
As for the women’s team, where she coaches with her dad, Kevin, who is the head coach, she’s feeling much more comfortable in that role since it is year two with the program.
“Last year was my first year ever coaching and there was a learning curve. This year, I’ve stepped into myself a little more and taken on that role more confidently,” Dessert said.
Dessart has been playing hockey most of her life and has always been passionate about the game. While at the University of Colorado playing for her dad, she helped lead the Buffaloes to league championships in 2020 and 2022.
Interestingly enough, coaching wasn’t originally in her plans. Then her dad offered her a position after graduation at Colorado, but when her dad took the job at Lawrence, she followed him there.
“Senior year I didn’t really have an idea what I was going to do in life,” Dessart said. “Coaching wasn’t a planned thing. But it’ was the next step for me and here I am.”
Then again, at one time, playing hockey in college wasn’t planned either. Her original goal was to be a soccer player at the next level.
“Growing up, hockey and soccer were my two top sports and I was pretty confident I was going to play soccer in college,” Dessart said. “Some things happened on my high school team and I decided I didn’t want to play soccer. But I kept with hockey and it worked out.”
Dessart loves interacting with the players and having the chance to still be around the game she loves is a thrill.
Not being too far removed from being a player herself gives her a unique perspective when it comes to coaching the sport.
“I understand the college life more than some do. I know pretty much all coaches played in college, but I just played and I know today’s college athlete life, which is nice,” Dessart said. “I can relate to student athletes, and a lot of times, they’ll talk with me about random things in life. I get it because I was just there. It’s been helpful.”
Another thing that has worked to her advantage is that she has her dad to turn to for questions.
“I was never afraid to ask questions last year and that’s continued this year,” Dessart said. “It was nice not having that barrier where I was afraid to to ask questions. He has been there to support me. It’s helped me become my own coach in a way.”
A lot of the time, she just sees her role as a men’s and women’s coach as her job and nothing more.
But when she connects with friends, she has those moments of thinking about how cool of an opportunity this really is for her.
“It’s really cool I get to coach men’s and women’s hockey, which is something not a lot of people get to say,” Dessart said. “I’ll talk with friends back home, and we’ll talk about our lives, and what we are up to, and that’s when I take a step back an think ‘this is really cool and super unique.’”
