A path from psychology to coaching
Mount Holyoke College senior Rachel Katzenberg ’25 said, “At Mount Holyoke, I 100% found a good community … a large community that wants to help me and see me succeed.”
Rachel Katzenberg ’25 almost quit field hockey after her first game as a goalie when she was just 12 or 13 years old. Her indoor club team had lost 27-0 in a match. Katzenberg thought she wouldn’t return, but her mother asked her to stick it out just a little longer. Her mom told her, “Failing is the first attempt at learning.”
Thankfully, she stuck with it, and it paved the way for her to be recruited for Mount Holyoke’s field hockey team. “We visited, and I immediately fell in love with Mount Holyoke’s campus. And I really liked the field hockey program. For me, I felt like I would be challenged both on the field and in the classroom.”
She hails from Reisterstown, Maryland, a place Katzenberg describes as having a big sense of community, which is something she hoped to bring with her and find at Mount Holyoke. When asked if she did, Katzenberg replied, “At Mount Holyoke, I 100% found a good community … a large community that wants to help me and see me succeed.”
She was happy to also find a strong community in the field hockey team, “If I had to describe Mount Holyoke field hockey in a word, it’s community. We’re there for each other, on and off the field,” she said. “Some of us are artists, in the choir, etc. … People do so many things off the field, and we show up for those things. It’s the person before the athlete.”
About her coach, Andy Whitcomb, Katzenberg said, “She has believed in me from the time I stepped [onto] campus in 2021 … has pushed me to put my best foot forward in the face of adversity. She is someone I always felt safe confiding in, and I know that 20 years from now, that will still ring true.”
When she wasn’t studying or playing hockey, Katzenberg took advantage of various clubs and organizations at Mount Holyoke. She spent time exploring nature with the Outing Club, knitting with her friends at Knit Happens meetings and being a member of the Jewish Student Union (JSU).
Growing up with both dyslexia and ADHD, Katzenberg attended a school focused on talented students with learning difficulties. Roz, a teacher at that school, was foundational to Katzenberg’s desire to be an educator. Roz passed away from breast cancer in 2019; the numbers of her death anniversary added up to 45 — Katzenberg’s jersey number in field hockey. At Mount Holyoke, she utilized Disability Services every year to review academic accommodations.
Katzenberg’s major is psychology. She knew from a young age that she liked helping people, giving advice and making a difference in the lives of others. She loves knowing why we make certain decisions. As a kid, her question was always: Why? “Studying at Mount Holyoke has helped me answer many of those whys,” she said.
Through Mount Holyoke’s Coach For College program through the Weissman Center for Leadership, Katzenberg took the opportunity to travel to Vietnam to help students with academics and sports. “I can pinpoint when I went from psychology to coaching,” she said.
In Vietnam, she met a teenager named Kayla who couldn’t quite grasp the technicalities of baseball. So, Katzenberg showed her the basics of batting. In no time at all, Kayla made contact with the ball and was elated. “My heart swelled like ten times. I really had to take a moment to compose myself,” Katzenberg said. “That was the moment where I [thought] … wait … I kind of wanna do this again.”
While at MHC, Katzenberg also traveled to Thailand to complete her Girl Scout Gold Award, which she did by providing feminine hygiene products to combat period poverty. She also went to Italy with the field hockey team for preseason training and won gold in field hockey at the Maccabiah Games in Israel.
Katzenberg makes MHC field hockey history as she leaves being in the top three goalies with the most saves in a single game—an astounding twenty-five. She said with a smile, “It’s always nice to be at the top of the leaderboard somewhere.” Another one of her biggest accomplishments is learning to ask for help, something she’d never seen as a strength before and now does. She understands that, most of the time, if someone is offering help it’s because they want to.
One of those people was Jennifer Jacoby, associate professor of psychology and education and Katzenberg’s academic advisor. “She is someone I deeply respect and someone I turn to when I need academic advice,” she said. “She has been integral to my success at Mount Holyoke.”
As Katzenberg prepares to step into the world, she’s got her mind set on coaching field hockey at the collegiate level. She already has an interview lined up and hopes to impart knowledge and positively influence people, much like her professors and coaches have done for her at MHC. Beyond coaching, Katzenberg said, “I could see myself doing sport psychology down the road.”
“[First-year] Rachel was totally unsure of herself. Senior Rachel is a lot more confident in what she can do,” she said when considering who she has become over the last four years. She continued, “I shouldn’t put any limits on myself. The sky’s the limit. My time at Mount Holyoke helped me solidify that.
“The only thing standing in the way of anything I want to do is me.”
