Kaitlyn Eager

Kaitlyn Eager is the Head Field Hockey Coach at Franklin & Marshall College.

Kaitlyn Eager enters her seventh season at the helm of the Franklin & Marshall College field hockey program in 2023. She has led the Diplomats to the NCAA Tournament three times as head coach, including a national runner-up finish in 2019 and a final four appearance in 2017.

Following another winning season in 2022, Eager's career record with the Diplomats stands at 77-24, a .762 winning percentage that increases to .820 in Centennial Conference play. In 2019, Eager's team delivered one of the most successful seasons in its history, setting five individual program records while remaining one of the top-ranked teams in Division III, culminating in a finish as the national runner-up. The Diplomats ended the year with a 20-4 record - the most single-season wins in program history - and advanced to the NCAA Final Four for the second time in three seasons. Eager and her staff also garnered NFHCA South Region Coaching Staff of the Year accolades for the second time in three seasons. In addition, the Diplomats had the Centennial Conference Offensive, Defensive, and Rookie of the Year with four players earning All-American status, the most of any team in Division III.

In 2018, the Diplomats made the program's fifth-consecutive trip to the NCAA Sweet 16 and 10th-straight winning season after culminating the 2018 campaign with a 17-4, 9-1 CC mark. As a team, F&M set the single-season record for goals against average (0.66) to surpass the 2012 squad (0.95). The defense also set the record for shutouts with 13 on the year, passing the 2014 team at 12.

Eager took over the program in 2017 and guided Diplomats field hockey to one of the most successful campaigns in its storied history. That season featured an 18-4, 9-1 Centennial Conference (CC) record, the team’s first CC Title since 2012 and the program’s first Final Four appearance since 1983. F&M toppled Johns Hopkins by a 2-1 score in the CC Championship and advanced to the Final Four with a 2-0 shutout of No. 8 Kean on Nov. 12. Eager and her staff were honored by the National Field Hockey Coaches Association (NFHCA) as the Regional Coaching Staff of the Year for the South Region.

Eager spent the 2016 season as head field hockey coach at York College, where she guided the Spartans to a 13-6 record and a 4-2 mark in the Capital Athletic Conference (CAC). York advanced to the CAC Semifinals and saw five Spartans named to the All-Conference team following her first season at the helm.

During a highly-successful, six-season stint at F&M from 2010-15 when she went by Kaitlyn Hamilton, the Diplomats tallied a 97-22 record, won the Centennial Conference (CC) Championship in 2012, and registered a trip to the NCAA Sweet 16 in both 2011 and 2014.

Before the start of her coaching career, Eager was a four-year letter winner at William Smith College, finishing her career with the Herons as a two-time All-American and a four-time All-Region and All-Liberty League selection, while also being named to Liberty League Rookie of the Year.

She was also recognized as a two-time winner of William Smith's Charles P. Boswell II '50 Field Hockey Award, assisted in capturing two Liberty League Championships, and scored two goals in the Division III NCAA Championships in 2006 and 2007. Eager graduated from William Smith College in 2010 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Sports Studies, before completing her Master’s of Education Degree in Sports Management from Millersville University in May 2012.

Eager is a native of Harpursville, NY. She currently resides in Landisville, Pa. with her husband George (F&M '10) and their sons, George and Grayson.