Special players do whatever they can to help the team.
Really special players do whatever they can to help any team.
That’s Dana Dockery.
Dockery, a recent graduate of Holy Family University, went to the school as a basketball player. But when she was a sophomore, the Tigers had trouble filling out their tennis roster, so she grabbed a racket and joined the team. This year, numbers were low on the Holy Family lacrosse team, so she started working out with Tigers before the spring season was canceled by coronavirus.
She loves sports and she loves to help those who need it.
“I had played tennis before when I was younger at a camp, so I did play it before,” said Dockery, who grew up in Wappinger Falls, New York. “I was around the lacrosse team a lot (working the clock) and I knew they needed players, so I tried it out. I only had a few practices before everything came to a stop. I don’t know how I would have done, I was told I would help because I’m tall. The team was great, I think it would have been fun.”
The rest of the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference agreed with everyone at Holy Family that Dockery is a special person.
Dockery was selected as the CACC Woman of the Year and as a result will be the conference’s nominee for NCAA Woman of the Year.
“This is a tremendous accomplishment especially with the positive impact Dana has had here at Holy Family during her career not only on the court but in the classroom and community as well,” said Tigers coach Bernadette Laukaitis. “On behalf of the coaching staff, players and the Holy Family women’s basketball family, we are very proud of Dana and can’t think of anyone more deserving of this award.”
Dockery has made a habit out of helping in the community.
The sports marketing-management major finished her undergraduate degree with a cumulative grade point average of 3.67. She made the dean’s list status five of eight semesters and was inducted into Chi Alpha Sigma, the National Honor Society for student-athletes.
She also got the Arthur Ashe Jr. Sports Scholar Award three times and was involved in community engagement events. She is also an active member in Holy Family’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, participating in the department’s annual Build-A-Library initiative along with helping develop ‘Student-Athletes in Action’, a Mental Health Awareness Month promotion video by SAAC.
And when she could, she’d help out in sports. She assisted at a SPIN Adult Day Basketball Camp and ran an Athletes Helping Athletes event during a women’s basketball game.
That’s a trait she picked up from her parents.
When her hometown lost its Pop Warner football program, her parents helped start an American Youth Football program. It started out with a few teams and it’s grown into teams for kids through eighth grade. Her two brothers played in the league, and she was a cheerleader.
“I loved cheerleading, but I was tall, so I wasn’t going to get thrown in the air, so I picked basketball,” Dockery said. “My parents encouraged sports. But they made us own it. They would make sure we got there and pay for the camps or whatever we needed, but if we wanted to be good, they made us own it. I took basketball very seriously, and they supported me the whole way.”
Dockery certainly owned her basketball career.
Since arriving at Holy Family, the power forward had some obstacles to overcome, but like her football-playing brothers, she always tackled them head on.
The biggest challenge was when she suffered a foot injury as a sophomore that limited her season to just six games. She didn’t red-shirt, which cost her a season, but she put in a lot of work to get back on the court for her junior year. This year, she helped the Tigers advance to the CACC championship game this past season for the first time since 2015. She ended her career with 245 points and 143 rebounds.
“The injury was bad because it kept me from playing,” Dockery said. “If someone had told me I could red-shirt, I would have because I lost a year of eligibility, but it ended up working out because I loved my time at Holy Family. Then we had a coaching change (last year), but that ended up working out because I love our coach. I loved playing for her this year.”
Holy Family was as good to Dockery as she was to Holy Family. Now she’s moving to Delaware, where she will be a graduate assistant sports information director at Goldey-Beacom College. She’ll also be going to school and working for Amazon in a warehouse. It’s a busy schedule, but she’s ready for it.
“I’m excited about it,” Dockery said. “I’m happy to be advancing in school. I’m very happy it’s in sports. I don’t need to work in sports, I feel I’ll always work in sports, be it as a coach or I’ll stay involved in some way. But I’m happy to be going to Goldey in this role.”
She’ll miss Holy Family, but she’s excited about the new venture. She also may add something to her car in the near future.
“My mom said I need to get a bumper sticker that says CACC Woman of the Year and in the running for NCAA Woman of the Year,” Dockery said with a laugh. “It means so much to me. It means a lot to my family, too. I was taught to give back in the community, so that’s why this means so much to me.”
