Kristen Holmes-Winn enters her 13th season as the head coach for Princeton Field Hockey. During her 13-year tenure with the Tigers, Holmes-Winn has managed to claim 11 Ivy League Titles, 10 NCAA Tournaments appearances and the program and Ivy Leagues first-ever national championship in 2012. Holmes-Winn holds a record of 153-73 overall and 79-5 in the Ivy League standings.
The 2012 national championship made history as the Tigers defeated No. 1 North Carolina in a come-from-behind effort to capture the programs first national title. That year, Holmes-Winn garnered praise as the National Field Hockey Coaches Association (NFHCA) and Mid-Atlantic Coach of the Year. Throughout her time at Princeton, Holmes-Winn has guided many players to significant individual honors, has coached seven first-team All-America selections, seven second-team All-America picks and seven third –tea, All-America honorees. In addition, she has helped develop 86 All-Ivy Honorees and assisted in garnering 44 players who received NFHCA All-Academic Squad honors.
Holmes-Winn, outside of Princeton, was named the head coach of the United States Field Hockey Association’s U-19 National Team in July 2011 and was a coach at the Junior National Team Camp in 2014 and 2011. Serving as an assistant coach with the U.S. National Team on its trip to Argentina in February 2010, Holmes-Winn was the USAFH Developmental Coach of the Year in 2003 thanks to her work as both the head coach of the U.S. National Under-16 team and as an assistant coach with the Under-21 national staff. Holmes-Winn earned her USAFH Level III accreditation (the highest level awarded) in 2009. She also serves as the coach of the Elite Performance Training Center for the New Jersey/Pennsylvania region, leading the team to five USFHA national championships (2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011).
In 2000, she also founded “Champion’s Edge,” a company dedicated to improving the quality of instruction and opportunities for middle-school and high-school-age field hockey players. Named Princeton’s head coach in March 2003, Holmes-Winn had spent the previous four years running Champion’s Edge. In addition to its emphasis on both instruction and teaching, the company holds camps and clinics throughout the United States.
From 1997 through 2000, Holmes-Winn was an assistant coach at her alma mater, the University of Iowa. The Hawkeyes reached the national semifinals in 1999 before falling to eventual national champion Maryland in double overtime. Holmes-Winn was an elite field hockey player and a three-time All-America selection as an undergraduate, while also earning recognition as a two-time Big Ten Athlete of the Year and Honda Broderick Award candidate. A member of three Big Ten field hockey championship teams and three NCAA final four teams, she also competed as a member of the 1997 Big Ten champion women’s basketball team that made an appearance in the NCAA Sweet 16. She graduated from Iowa in1997 with a degree in political science and minors in both French and anthropology.
Holmes-Winn spends much of her time reaching audiences, including her Princeton Tigers field hockey team, about the power of “mindset”, factors that affect human performance and how to optimize production as an athlete. Holmes-Winn has implemented considerable technology to help the advancement of her players in regards to rest, recovery, sleep, etc. Holmes-Winn has successfully argued the importance of physiological and psychological factors that influence success and happiness in athletics and life.
Holmes-Winn, a native of Bridgewater, Mass., is married to Matt Winn, a former baseball player at Iowa and current trader/financial advisor at Merrill Lynch. The couple has a son, Parker, and a daughter, Tenley.
