STERLING — A familiar face recently joined the roster of the Recreation Department team.
Longtime town resident Nicole Daly is thrilled to be the new assistant director and brings years of working with youth of all ages with her. The Fitchburg native started teaching at Houghton Elementary School three months after graduating from UMass Amherst in 2001, and coached soccer for many years for various ages as her two daughters grew up playing the sport.
Since resigning from her teaching position in 2022, Daly said she has “been lucky enough to focus on other important parts of my life, like my family and coaching.” Last year she coached daughter Julia, 14, on the Chocksett Middle School girls soccer team in the fall, and then the middle school track team of 41 athletes in the spring after she found out the program was in danger of not being held because no one had stepped up to coach.
“Now that both of my daughters are in high school and no longer need me coaching their teams, I found I really missed the connection and feeling of accomplishment that comes with coaching kids,” Daly said. “The rec program position was a perfect way to bring that back into my life, so when the opportunity presented itself, I applied that same day.”
She found out during her interview that several other candidates had applied for the assistant director position, so she was “very excited” when Recreation Department Director Shari Gonsorcik called her the following week and said they were offering the position to her.
Gonsorcik said she is happy to have Daly on board and thinks she will be a valuable asset to the department, town residents, and the greater community.
“Nicole’s background of teaching in the public school system and her volunteer experience across multiple sports made her stand out, but it was her ability to coach a sport she had no experience with, to draw on her resources and make it successful,” Gonsorcik said, referencing Daly’s jump into coaching track at Chocksett last year with no prior experience — and nailing it. “Much of what we do in recreation is provide programs to the community regardless of our personal knowledge. I am very excited to have Nicole join the Sterling Recreation Department.”
Daly and her husband, Jeremy, share another daughter, Ellie, 16, and both girls attend Wachusett Regional High School. The mom of two started coaching soccer the first year Ellie played soccer, when she started kindergarten in 2011. It was the perfect fit for Daly, who had played soccer as a student at Fitchburg High.
“I was so excited when my own kids showed an interest in my favorite sport,” Daly recalled.
From then on, she coached every fall for the Sterling Youth Soccer Association, along with her husband, for their daughters’ teams, often two teams per season. They also coached Sterling girls’ soccer teams at Bancroft School in Worcester for indoor winter soccer for many years, and the Chocksett girls soccer team in 2019 and 2021.
“Our last year of coaching was fall of 2021, when Jules played her final season of Sterling rec soccer and for Chocksett,” Daly said. “Now we are on the spectator side with Jules on the WRHS JV team.”
Other experience she has working with young people includes being a summer camp counselor at Applewild School in Fitchburg throughout college and teaching second, third, and fourth grades during her 20 years at Houghton.
“I’ve been working with kids in both recreational and academic settings for over 25 years,” Daly said.
She has “been on the parent end” of Recreation Department programs for many years, she said, so has “seen firsthand how much connection it offers the youth of Sterling, connection with their peers and connection to experiencing new sports and activities.” As a teacher for so many years, she heard kids “excitedly talk with classmates about being on the same basketball team or doing after-school Zumba together.”
When asked if she has any goals when it comes to her new role, Daly said she would love to see the Recreation Department “continue to offer quality programs in a range of interests to the children of Sterling.”
“After leaving teaching and then being done coaching my girls, I really missed having that connection with kids. Organizing, directing and interacting with kids is second nature to me, and I’m so glad that I’ve been given the opportunity to have it back in my life again. I hope that my passion for working with children will serve as a benefit to the community of Sterling.”
