Penn field hockey’s newest coach: Former Northwestern midfielder Charlotte Vaziri

It’s been just a few weeks since Charlotte Vaziri took the role of Penn field hockey assistant coach in early April, but she has wasted no time preparing for next fall. 

After losing to Harvard in the semifinals of the Ivy League Tournament last season, the Quakers sought to bring someone new into the staff to help get them over the hump. As fate would have it, Vaziri was looking to get into the collegiate coaching arena at the same time. 

Following a dominant four-year campaign at Northwestern in which she played in all 82 games and started every game over the final three seasons of her career, Vaziri took the path that many Penn students dream of: consulting. 

Earning her masters from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management and entering the consulting world, Vaziri tried to keep field hockey a part of her life by coaching high school and club teams on the side. However, it got to the point where her career was picking up so much that she was forced to choose between the two. 

“When that started to happen, it really caused me to reevaluate, and I realized that field hockey was the thing that I look forward to most in my day, and without that, something just didn't feel right internally,” Vaziri said. 

Having had three siblings who went to Penn as students, Vaziri became familiar with the field hockey program that eventually pushed her to take a crack at joining the staff with coach Colleen Fink. 

“I actually sent a cold email to Penn seeing if they would be interested in a coach before I even knew there was a job posting. So I kind of was like, ‘I'm leaving consulting behind and just going to take the jump back into my first love,’” Vaziri said. 

On the Penn side of things, Fink acknowledged that it wasn’t only her high level of play at Northwestern that stood out to her, but also her experience on the business side of things. Fink feels as though Vaziri’s experience in the corporate arena will give her increased relatability to student-athletes who are also extremely academically and career focused. 

On the other side of that, however, the last component of Fink’s attraction towards Vaziri as a hire was her decision to leave it all behind for the game. 

“I just really loved the bravery piece, that she was kind of not loving what she was doing and wanted to explore other options,” Fink said. “She really wanted to be passionate about what she did, and for her, she feels like it’s coaching.” 

Since her hiring, Vaziri has been on campus with the team. From watching spring tournaments and meeting the new class of freshman players to getting acclimated to the administrative aspects of coaching, Fink and assistant coach Sydney Rhodes James feel as though Vaziri is more than ready to help take the Red and Blue to where they want to go. 

“I think she's a great hire. She has a lot of passion and energy to learn and works really hard,” James said. “I think it's gonna be very quick for her to get on board with all the things and really contribute.” 

As summer quickly approaches and the athletes prepare to leave campus before their return in the fall, Vaziri has done everything she can to ensure that everyone is on the same page when the grind begins in August. 

Until then, the whole coaching staff will be working with the goal of a banner at the forefront of their minds. 

“So far, it honestly hasn't even felt like I'm starting a new job. These kids are super eager to learn and to absorb and I think they've also been restless to have a cultural shift and have different levels of demands on them,” Vaziri said. “They want a championship culture, and so that's what I'm trying to bring to them.”