Windy City is proud to announce the 2011-2012 Travel Team staff. These women bring superior expertise to the Windy City Travel Team program.
Windy City is proud to announce that Katie Beach, former captain of the United States Field Hockey Team, All-American at the University of Maryland and former head coach year at Columbia University 2004-2008 has joined the Windy City Travel Team staff.
Beach was a member of the USA National Field Hockey Team from 1994-2004 and captained the squad in 2003 and 2004. She was named the United States Field Hockey Association Player of the Year in 2000 and again in 2003. Over her 10 years on the USA Team, she competed in major competitions including the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games and Pan American games in 1999 and 2003 and the World Cup in 1998 and 2002. In addition, she represented Team USA at the Champions Challenge, Olympic Qualifying Tournaments in 2000 and 2004 and numerous 4 Nation Tournaments throughout the world. During her playing career, Katie earned over 180 international caps and gained leadership experience during her ten year's as a member of the USA National Team.
Katie is a 1997 graduate of the University of Maryland where she played four seasons and was a two-time captain. She was a first-team All-American in 1994 and 1996 and a finalist for the Honda Broderick Field Hockey Player of the Year as a senior. Katie was a four year starter and helped her team win the 1993 NCAA National Championship while at Maryland. Beach was a Dean's List student, an Academic All-American and member of the Omicron Delta Kappa Leadership Society. She graduated from Maryland with a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing from the Robert H. Smith School of Business.
After graduation, Beach took a position as an assistant coach at the University of Virginia, while training with the national team. After six months at UVA, Beach returned to Maryland as an assistant to Missy Meharg where she was involved in leading the team to a 1999 ACC and NCAA national championship and the following year helped the squad to a repeat of the conference title. In 2004 she took the head coach position at Columbia University and in 5 seasons took them from a 1-16 record to an 11-6 success in the Ivy's.
Since 1997, Beach has developed, organized and coached Field Hockey Clinics throughout the country. In 2004, Beach started the Dream Big Field Hockey Camp, which consisted of instructional camps and clinics throughout the East Coast.
Beach has also coached various National Team Developmental Programs and was selected to coach a team at the USA/Canada Challenge in the summer of 2007. She continues to be involved with the USFHA by serving on the Ethics Committee, the Futures Task Force and has earned her USFHA Level II Coaching Accreditation.
Beach's accomplishments also include being inducted into University of Maryland Hall of Fame and Wilson High School Hall of Fame.
Amanda is the newest member of the Windy City full-time staff. She is the Director of Program Development, responsible for recruitment, development and execution of the Windy City Roots and Stride programs. In addition she coaches two Travel Teams and is very instrumental in the success and direction of the Travel Team Program.
Amanda comes from Newtown, Pennsylvania where she played high school field hockey for Pennsbury. During her high school years, she was in the Spirit Eagles Field Hockey Club under the directions of Bobby Issar.
She was recruited by Northwestern to play field hockey where she was a four year starter and two year captain. As a junior in 2006 at Northwestern, she was selected as 2nd Team All Big Ten and 2nd team Regional All American. As a Senior she was a 1st Team All Big Ten selection, a 2nd Team Regional All American, and a All-Big Ten Tournament Team selection. She was also a member of the USFHA Midwest High Performance Training Squad for two consecutive years.
Amanda has been coaching at Windy City for 5 years. After college, she started the field hockey program at St Ignatius High School and currently is the Assistant Varsity Coach at Loyola Academy. Loyola Academy reached the Illinois State final four for the first time in 2010 where they finished 3rd. She was also a Trainer for Sports Made Personal for a year.
Amanda graduated in 2008 from Northwestern's Robert McCormick School of Engineering with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering. While at Northwestern she was the recipient of the Women in Engineering Award from the Philadelphia Chapter and was awarded the McCormick Engineering and Design Winner award twice. Her senior year, Amanda was the recipient of the Eggemeyer Endowed Scholarship for outstanding service to athletics and for contributions of inspiration and leadership.
Dawn is a Southern California native who started playing as a high school freshman where she received honors as the Palomar League Player of the Year in both her Junior and Senior years. She led her team to a CIF conference championship her Senior year and was named CIF Player of the Year.
In 1992 she was recruited to play for The Ohio State University Buckeyes where she was a four year letter winner in her career as a collegiate player. In 1993, 1994 and 1995 she was named 1st Team Regional All American. In 1993 and 1995 she was 2nd Team All Big Ten and in 1994 was named 1st team All Big Ten. In 1994 she was voted the Buckeyes Most Valuable Player and in that same year she was the leading point scorer in the Big Ten Conference. In 1994 she also received the honor of being named the Buckeye's first National All American in 15 years.
Throughout her years as a player Dawn also participated in the USA Field Hockey Olympic Developmental Programs. As a senior in high school, junior and senior in college she attended the USFHA's national training camps. In 1994 she was selected as an alternate for the USA U21 National Team. She has also coached in the USHFA Futures program.
Dawn's extensive coaching background at various levels and experiences began by coaching four years of varsity high school field hockey in Columbus, Ohio. Dawn's family has owned the Heartland Field Hockey Club in Ohio for many years where Dawn frequently coached their club teams in competition at USFHA Festival and Disney events. In 2010 she coached her Ohio team to an undefeated pool championship at the Festival. And In addition, she has coached camps at Northwestern, Penn State and Ohio State. Locally, she coached the varsity team at Deerfield High School from 2006 to 2010 and currently she is an Illinois high school field hockey official.
Dawn is a consistently popular and effective Windy City coach in multiple programs over the past four years. Her talents include working with Windy City's high level athletes and thrives at coaching the very young athlete. She has worked in both the Academy and Select programs and now within our fall Youth League.
One of Dawn's passions for sport includes professional women's tackle football. She is currently a player with the Chicago Force. In the summer of 2010 she was a member of Team USA that travelled to Sweden where they won the first World Championship in this competitive sport.
Stephanie Nykaza currently is the head field hockey coach at New Trier High School where she has been coaching for 22 years. Her teams have consistently had successful seasons and have finished in the Illinois High School Field Hockey Association's Final 
Four 20 of her 22 years. In addition, she has led the Trevians to 8 State Championships. Three of those Championships have been in the past three years and she has coached her players to accomplished the illusive 3-peat.
Stephanie has also been actively involved with field hockey's national governing body, the USFHA. She has served as the Regional Coaching Director in Illinois. She has coached various USFHA Junior Olympic teams and has coached many years in the Futures program . Stephanie has also been a Windy City coach earlier in her career when both Windy City and she were just starting out. She has coached at many camps and currently runs summer field hockey camps and clinics for high school and junior high players on the North Shore.
Stephanie is a New Trier alumnus where she played field hockey for 3 years. Her athletic career continued at Michigan State University where she was a four year starter and captain in her senior year. During both high school and college, she trained in the USFHA national camps and at the Olympic training center in Colorado Springs.
Stephanie currently resides in the Chicagoland area with her husband and two teenage children. Her son attends college and her daughter is a current player in Windy City.
Molly is a native to the Chicago-land area as she comes from Kenilworth, Illinois. She played field hockey at New Trier High School under current coach Stephanie Nykaza. She is a 2006 graduate of Penn State University where she played under Char Morett.
She was a
3 year starter, 2 time captain and 2 time Big 10 defensive player of the week (2004, 2005). In 2002 Penn State was the NCAA National Runner Up falling to Wake Forest in the finals. In October of 2004, Molly was named Big 10 Defensive Player of the Week as well as being named Women's Field Hockey National Player of the week. In 2005, she captained the undefeated, Big 10 Season Championship team and set a school record with a 17 game win streak. At Penn State, Molly had the opportunity to compete internationally against top club teams throughout Spain and Australia.
Off the field, Molly was inducted into Spiritus Leoninus which is a society that recognizes student athletes for outstanding performance in athletics, academics, leadership, and community service. The recipients of this award comprise only 2% of student-athletes at Penn State. Molly was a member of the Student Athlete Advisory Board at Penn State where she was a liaison between team members and the faculty on the board. As a board member she organized community outreach programs for student athletes; organized and participated in Dance Marathon; the country's largest student-run philanthropy, a 48 hour event that raised over 4 million dollars for pediatric cancer.
Molly graduated in 2006 from Penn State with a degree in Education and continued her post graduate education in Architecture with programs at Columbia University in New York and Syracuse University's campus in Florence, Italy.
Since her graduation, Molly has worked as a project engineer in the Building Division at Kenny Construction Company. This is Molly's third season with Windy City and in addition to her club coaching she coached one season at Loyola Academy before accepting a coaching position at the Latin School in Chicago for field hockey and softball. Molly has earned her USFHA Level I Coaching Accreditation.
