Coons scores golf scholarship with University of Indiana
Date: 11/24/2008
By Debbie Gardner
PRIME Editor
WILBRAHAM The green broke favorably this fall for Minnechaug Regional High School senior Katie Coons.
On Nov. 14 the co-captain of the school's varsity golf team signed a national letter of intent to attend the University of Indiana next fall on a partial golf scholarship.
"I'm really excited and [my family] is just as excited as I am," Coons told
Reminder Publications during a pre-signing interview.
A star golfer at Minnechaug, Coons' coach Gary Manuel said she has distinguished herself on the varsity golf team throughout her four years at the school, serving as co-captain of the mostly male team in both her junior and senior years.
Manuel said in her first two years on the team, Coons captured the individual championships in Western Mass girls' golf. She then brought home the second place trophy in that competition in her junior and senior years.
As a junior, Manuel said Coons also played her way to a third-place trophy in the girls' state individual golf championships.
"She's been a terrific student athlete for us for four years," Minnechaug Athletics Director Ned Doyle said of Coons. "Katie is a terrific student in the classroom and a terrific member of the Minnechaug community both in and out of the classroom.
"She keeps everything in perspective," he added.
An avid golfer since the age of eight, Coons said she approached 100 schools via the Internet looking for potential scholarship money, including the University of Florida and Fresno State in California.
She said her major at U of Indiana is listed as "exploratory, but I'm thinking kinesiology or biology."
She added that her dream is to "play [golf] professionally, but we'll see how college goes." She also hopes to ultimately work in the golf industry either as a trainer or rehabilitation specialist.
Coons is also the second member of her family to attend college on a golf scholarship. Her older sister, Erin, is in her sophomore year at San Diego State University in California on a golf scholarship.
