Her husband is a former Hopewell Valley Central High standout quarterback and current Bulldogs assistant. Her mom played at Hopewell under the great Barb Skiba and went on to become a successful field hockey coach at Stuart.
And she, herself, was a star field hockey player at HVCHS before helping The College of New Jersey to a Division III national title.
So was there ever a doubt that the first head varsity job for Alicia Fellows — formerly Wagner — would be the Bulldogs field hockey coach?
A 2012 graduate, Fellows scored 64 goals in two seasons playing for Pam Edwards, the woman she replaced. HoVal went 35-4 during those campaigns.
“It’s pretty surreal,” Fellows said. “It’s a full-circle moment coming back to Hopewell. It’s a pretty special feeling. Obviously Hopewell Valley runs deep in our blood. I really just wanted to coach at Hopewell and when Pam first called me to see if I wanted to help out as an assistant coach, she said she had a few years left and she was planning to retire.”
So Fellows returned — to a lot of familiar faces.
“Hopewell has been really lucky in a sense of having longevity with coaches,” she said. “And then you come back and it’s still the same coaches from mom’s era of coaching. They’re all fantastic coaches. It’s been funny going from being a student to seeing it from this side of things now.
“It just felt like it was destined to be. I really can’t picture myself anywhere else but Hopewell.”
Neither can her husband, Austin Fellows, one of HoVal’s all-time greats who quarterbacked the 2013 team to its first state sectional title. And no, they were not high school sweethearts.
“He wishes,” Alicia said with a laugh.
Did he have a crush?
“So he says,” she added playfully. “My cousin worked at We Make (an autism network in Pennington) and Austin works there too. I would go visit and he worked pretty hard to get a first date. He’s living large now.”
The two were married last November — with Sara officiating —- and are expecting a baby girl in December.
“She better play field hockey,” Alicia said. “She’ll have a stick in her hand the moment she comes out. She’ll just have to follow in the footsteps.”
Those imprints start with Sara, who utilized her daughter as an assistant while coaching Stuart field hockey and, for the last two years, with the Bulldogs varsity lacrosse team. Mom feels her daughter’s return is a win-win situation.
“I don’t know if she’s been inspired to do this since day one but she’s definitely looking forward to it and it’s kind of neat,” Wagner said. “It is special and it’s good for everybody.
“She knows the culture. She’ll create her own culture as well. Some of her teachers are still there she’s always been one who’s herself no matter what.”
Fellows was the head JV lacrosse coach for two years before becoming Sara’s assistant. She assisted Edwards in field hockey for three years and acknowledged the chance her former coach provided.
“I am thankful for the time I had at Hopewell and she was my coach so I was thankful I got a coaching opportunity with her,” Fellows said. “She gave me an opportunity to come back so I was appreciative of that.”
Fellows feels the coaching experience she has gotten will be a plus, along with the lessons she learned playing for a national championship team in college.
“To be on a successful team that really competed, just the practices were super competitive,” she said. “That definitely made us all tougher. I learned a lot of lessons.”
But there is no doubt that her greatest lessons in life — in field hockey and coaching — come from her mom, who she says is the greatest person she knows. Fellows knew in high school that she wanted to emulate Sara.
“Watching her coach when I was younger, I was in awe of it,” Fellows said. “Just the culture she created and how she really had relationships with every single kid. She could tell you about every kid and what was going on with them. It was the type of environment everybody wanted to be around. And she still does it now. I wanted to strive to be like that.
“She really is such a good coach in every aspect. She can put together the best lineup, the best practices, tailor it to everyone and also make them feel super welcome and safe and happy. She makes them grow as people too. If I could just be a fraction of the coach my mom is then I’m happy with that.”
Fellows has quickly seen that head coaching is much more frenetic than being an assistant, where all one has to do is coach. Aside from coaching, there is paperwork, planning and numerous other responsibilities.
Like her mom, Alicia is as concerned with her players as human beings as well as athletes.
“At the varsity level, there is an intensity level you can bring and you can also develop players into good people and bring so much more to the table,” Fellows said. “It’s so important to have that relationship and rapport with them and just build them along to be better people.”
Wagner feels the best advice she can give her daughter is to just be herself.
“We talk all the time about how every coach is different because we all have different personalities; and you have to be completely you,” Wagner said. “You have to look yourself in the mirror at the end of the day and say ‘OK I did the right thing. ‘ I think that’s most important.”
Fellows is going to her mom for plenty of advice in terms of Xs and Os.
“There’s a lot to learn,” said Alicia, who’s a speech therapist at Stony Brook Elementary School. “You have to manage all different things you’re not usually used to doing. I still have the guidance from my mom. I’m learning how to navigate everything and how to implement the best practice plan as possible, putting everybody in the right spots. I’m happy to have her to lean on for that.”
She also has her husband to bounce things off of at the dinner table.
“Our conversations are constantly about how practice was, how all the players are, debriefing the games,” Fellows said. “It’s just the norm for us. It’s fun, it’s my favorite part of the day.”
Wagner is impressed by Austin’s grasp of a sport that’s foreign to him. The two women were having an in-depth field hockey conversation in front of the ex-quarterback when his mother-in-law apologized for freezing him out. Or so she thought.
“He said, ‘No, it’s kind of fun,’” Wagner said. “Then he threw in his two cents of who should play where, and he was right. He was listening to her and she was sort of doubting herself and I’m in the same boat listening to her. I said ‘You keep saying this, so that means the person should be there.’ And Austin is jumping right in.”
The Bulldogs graduated 12 seniors from last year’s team but Fellows feels she has a “great group of kids” coming back in addition to some hustling freshmen. She understands this will be a developmental year, but still hopes it will be a successful one.
“I realize there’s a little rebuilding and they have to be coached a little bit,” she said. “But obviously I want to win and they want to win too. It’s obvious those girls have it in them. I want them to get better as players and individuals, but we’re here to win.”
Which is something that Fellows has done all her life.
The way she figures, why change now?
