By Pam Janis
When Katie Nicholson and Katie Watson wanted to sign their young daughters up for a field hockey program in Rye, there was just one problem.
There weren’t any.
So the two Rye moms — both former college field hockey players and best friends for 20 years — decided to build one themselves.
Working with the Rye Recreation Department, the “two Katies” have created the town’s newest addition to organized youth sports.
Their program, First Flicks, teaches the game’s fundamentals and basic play to about 120 girls so far. Founded in 2025, the program is already a wildly popular Rec offering, expanding in June from clinics and training to a summer intramural league.
The new league will join Rye’s other youth sports, including soccer and lacrosse, and will have eight teams of Rye’s girls playing games against each other.
Beginnings
The genesis of First Flicks started on a Georgetown University field hockey field, where two girls named Katie met in pre-season training during their freshman year. An older varsity field hockey student thought the Katies would be a good match — and she was right: besties immediately, they went on to room together all four years of college.
After graduation in 2009, they set out on different paths on opposite coasts. Nicholson worked in high-yield and leveraged loan sales at RBC Capital Markets in New York, while Watson worked at Eye to Eye, a nonprofit for children with learning differences in San Francisco.
“Ending up in the same town was kind of random,” Nicholson said. “We didn’t have a plan to seek out being neighbors.”
Both became Rye residents after starting their families and wishing to trade urban for suburban life. They each have four children, ages 2 to 8.
For Katie Watson, who grew up in Larchmont and played four varsity sports (field hockey, lacrosse, basketball, and ice hockey) at Mamaroneck High School, coming back to Rye was about connection.
“We wanted to make our way back towards family,” she said.
Her parents and sister live in Larchmont, her brother in Rye. Her husband, Chris Watson, is from Connecticut, and they initially moved to Greenwich.
But once there, Watson said, “We were spending most of our time in Rye, hanging out with Katie and her kids, or with my brother and his kids.”
When their real estate agent showed them a condo in Rye in 2021, Watson said, “We pretty much immediately fell in love with it.”
Katie Nicholson, who grew up near Philadelphia, moved to Rye with her husband, Sean, and their family in 2019. Leaving the world of high finance wasn’t hard, she said, adding, “When I’m on the field with my whistle, I feel very much more at home than I did before.”
‘Where’s the Field Hockey?’
With both families settled in Rye, the spark for First Flicks came quickly. Their daughters were already playing Rye soccer and lacrosse, but the moms wondered, “Where’s the field hockey?”
They signed their girls up for the closest, best program they could find: Sacred Heart in Greenwich. “But,” Nicholson said, “they were just really young for us to be driving them to and from Greenwich. That’s when we decided we needed something more local.”
Both Katies had coached before — Nicholson sits on the board of Rye Youth Lacrosse — and they turned to a wide youth sports network to push First Flicks forward. Advisors included Katie Watson’s own high school coaches and sports organizers in Katie Nicholson’s hometown. The Rec Department helped with funding and provided its fields, while the two moms borrowed and bought balls and basic equipment to get things moving.
They also partnered with the Rye High School field hockey team and its new coach, Valerie Montano. RHS varsity players help coach, and through them, “The kids see the opportunity for them starting at such a young age to be really involved as the pipeline grows,” Nicholson said.
Since the program’s launch last year, word has been spread by the Rec Department, friends with young daughters, the schools, an Instagram account, a piece in Ryemarkable Moms, and the young players themselves.
Impact On and Off the Field
For most of the younger girls, it’s their first time holding a stick or playing an organized sport.
First Flicks teaches teamwork and field hockey fundamentals. And with so much attention on childhood anxiety and mental health, organized sports have an important role to play in kids’ development — and that’s something the two Katies take seriously.
“I do think that playing sports and being part of a team can help with that,” Nicholson said. “Starting sports at a young age is only going to be beneficial if they do have those issues.”
Watson agreed.
“I think that for us, being moms and coaches, we really know the insides and outs of these kids, what they’re going through at home, and what they’re going through in school,” she said. “It’s really helpful, for instance, to know if a kid’s walking in scared. We know what to do because we’ve been there. That’s the super helpful part about being a female coaching young girls.”
Last year, the friends noticed a shy, reluctant girl who needed encouragement. They assigned one of the high school coaches to follow her from station to station.
“By the end of the series, she was great,” Watson said. “She was out there participating in everything. Some kids need a little bit of individual attention to really feel confident that they can do it. We’re happy to provide that.”
One key resource for building that confidence: the high school varsity players who help them coach.
One of those, Issy Mann, a RHS senior who will play field hockey next year at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., said that working with the girls in First Flicks’ “positive and encouraging environment” has taught her patience, leadership, and “how much their confidence can grow just by making the girls feel supported and by especially making it fun.”
Seeing the Katies’ impact on the players, she said, “has inspired me to continue coaching and being a positive role model for younger athletes.”
When Mann was their age, Rye had few opportunities for young girls to play field hockey.
“We practiced on grass, which didn’t truly reflect how the game is played today,” she said. “Because of that, many players didn’t get the chance to fully experience the sport or build a strong connection to it at a young age. I’ve really admired how the Katies have worked to grow the game and introduce more girls to field hockey in a fun and authentic way.”
She especially loves seeing how much the girls improve “in just a couple of days” and watching them “start to truly enjoy the game.” She added, “It has been amazing to see how much the program has grown in one year and how much it has impacted the young athletes in the community.”
Managing a program — and soon a league — “definitely takes a village,” Nicholson said.
Supportive spouses help. Sean Nicholson and Chris Watson wear First Flicks team hats as they cheer from the sidelines. They also wear other hats at home, figuratively speaking, managing the kids when the moms are on the field. Other family members also pitch in: Nicholson’s mother has already blocked out the date of the big week-long First Flicks camp to come help with Nicholson’s 2-year-old.
“The No. 1 thing is making sure they’re having fun and building friendships,” Watson said. “If they can see that our friendship and just the fun that we’re still having over all these years can be replicated on the field, that’s a gift. We’re really lucky to be doing this, and we are having a ton of fun.”
Next Steps
The summer intramural league is open to first through fifth graders and runs June 29-Aug. 3, with a skills session followed by a game format.
“We want to make field hockey a household sport in Rye,” Nicholson said. “So when girls are getting involved in soccer and lacrosse, field hockey is right up there with it. We don’t want it to be an afterthought. We’re really happy to have our summer league launching this year, but I think the goal would be to have something in the fall, too.”
“Field hockey brought us together,” Watson added. “And here we are helping the youth learn field hockey themselves. Hopefully, they can gain the confidence and have the fun competition and friendship that we have.”
For more information or to sign up, visit the Rye Rec website at ryeny.gov.
