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Molly McCarthy enters her third year as assistant coach of Loyola’s volleyball team after spending the 1998-2000 seasons as head coach of the Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School girl’s varsity squad. In 2001, then first-year head coach Jen Briggs decided to bring her former University of Notre Dame teammate and friend to the Evergreen Campus as an assistant because of McCarthy’s stellar athletic and academic career as a member of the Fighting Irish volleyball team. Both McCarthy and Briggs have had a solid two years together; the duo suffered a 6-23 campaign in 2001 then turned the program around to go 18-16 and finish third in the MAAC in 2002, making for Loyola’s best season in a decade. At the same time, the Notre Dame grads have produced a first team All-MAAC selection, a number of MAAC All-Academic selections, and have done a nice job of developing a tight team chemistry that could be the foundation for future MAAC titles. While at ND, McCarthy was the recipient of a flurry of awards and accomplishments, both individual and team successes. In her four years on the squad, McCarthy helped lead the Irish to three undefeated seasons in the Big East Conference resulting in three Big East championships. She also was a factor in Notre Dame’s advancing to the “Sweet 16” of the NCAA National Championship Tournament three times during her career. Individually, McCarthy earned the Most Improved Student Athlete Award at the Purdue Mortar Volleyball Tournament as well as snagging the Notre Dame Francis Patrick O’Connor Award, which is given annually to one male and one female Fighting Irish student athlete who best display total embodiment of spirit and inspiration to their respective teams. The first year assistant is also a member of ND’s Monogram Club after racking up three career varsity monograms, not to mention the fact that McCarthy was awarded a full athletic scholarship after “walking on” to the team her freshman year. Since her graduation in 1998 as a Dean’s List student from Notre Dame with a major in Economics and a minor in Theology, McCarthy has participated in a variety of teaching, coaching, and religious programs. Some of these programs include being a CCD teacher and basketball coach at Catholic elementary schools in Washington, D.C., participating in Life Athletes, a national organization of professional and Olympic athletes who commit to lives of virtue, abstinence, and respect for life, as well as working last year as a full time Professor of Mathematics at the Institut Le Chatelard. |
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