WILTON – Seventy-two-year-old “Fitzy” Fitzpatric has coached more than 500 young girls on the fields and courts for at least 40 years.

But after Claire Fitzpatric’s Mount Blue Middle School team plays their last field hockey game at 3:30 p.m. Thursday at the school, she’s calling it quits.

Middle School Athletic Director Monique Poulin said Fitzpatric has been “just wonderful; she’s just a great person to have working with kids.”

Poulin described the Jay native who has coached from Livermore Falls to Farmington, as reliable, kind and caring.

“She just has a great rapport with the kids; firm, fair but they just have a lot of fun as well,” Poulin said.

“Oh my God, I’ve coached everywhere,” Fitzpatric said. “It goes way back. Some of the girls I’ve coached have grandchildren.”

Fitzpatric, whose maiden name is Ouellette, grew up in a very athletic family, but she had never played field hockey when she graduated from Jay High School in 1949.

But that didn’t stop her when Livermore Falls High School Principal John Coolidge asked her to coach the varsity field hockey team in 1976.

“I didn’t know a darn thing about it,” she said. “but I said, ‘Why not!'”

Besides substitute teaching, she coached softball and basketball during her career, both sports she played in high school.

And then she learned how to play field hockey.

“Boy did I learn,” Fitzpatric said. “I watched what other coaches did and the players. I really enjoy the game; it’s really a tough game. The only thing I worry about is their faces. A high ball could hurt their eyes, nose…”

The first year she coached field hockey at Livermore Falls, the girls went on to win the state championship. But she’s quick to say it wasn’t because of her coaching: It was what Carole Dempsey, their former coach, taught them, and the outstanding girls on the team.

“I’d like to say it was me, but the kids were wonderful and still are,” Fitzpatric said.

She enjoyed coaching girls at all levels, she said.

“At the high school level, they’re more mature and it’s easier to get them to understand the principles of the sport,” Fitzpatric said. “At the junior high level, if you can get them to stop talking and giggling … they’re young ladies and they’re fabulous.”

She likes being around the children to tell them “I’m there for them,” she said. “They can call me anytime to tell me their problems or even have fun with them.”

What she likes best, she said, is to see them graduate from college.

“I think sports is very important but they have to realize that some of these sports they cannot play for the rest of their lives or go out and earn big money. But a college degree will follow them through,” Fitzpatric said.

Her granddaughter, Jennifer Godomsky, who she also coached, said, Fitzpatric “is completely into coaching, making sure that you learn in the appropriate way. She enjoys what she does. I think she’s a terrific coach. She’s probably the best coach I’ve ever had.”

Fitzpatric said she’s calling it quits because “I think they need young blood. It’s time to let the younger people get to them.”

She retired from coaching basketball last year, and had done the same with softball years ago, but she wanted to follow the girls she coached in field hockey last year, again this year.

“I wanted to continue with these girls because I’m telling you there are outstanding athletes in this group of eighth-graders,” she said.

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