By Kate Vavra ’26
Staff Writer
After departing from Mount Holyoke College’s athletics department 24 years ago, Debby Ghezzi has returned to take on the role of interim director of athletics and chair of physical education.
Ghezzi planned to retire after serving as athletic director at Northfield Mount Hermon School, a preparatory school in Gill, Massachusetts, in her last position. However, she decided to return to Mount Holyoke to offer her expertise as the athletics department goes through the search for a new athletic director.
In the past, Ghezzi served as the director of athletic facilities and intramurals at Mount Holyoke.
In an interview with Mount Holyoke News, Ghezzi shared how she will be working to advance athletic initiatives on campus. One of the bigger initiatives she has planned is connecting with the Alumnae Association.
“We're working on a couple fun things with the [Alumnae] Association to help us continue to make contacts with our athletic alumni,” Ghezzi said. “Those opportunities are great because a lot of folks love to serve as mentors to our kids for internships. A lot of them are in a place to give to athletics again, which we proved in the Day of Giving [fundraiser]. So to form those relationships and bring a lot of our alumni back into our athletic form is really important.”
Ghezzi also remarked on how much she has enjoyed interacting with the student body, whom she thinks she can learn from. “They see things from a different lens than I [and their coach] do … So I learn a lot from them and then try to take that back … how can we do things better in dining, in the training room, in my office and anywhere to make their experience better.”
When asked what her biggest piece of advice for student-athletes is, Ghezzi asserted that passion is necessary for improvement. “I think we need to stay passionate about our sport and we need to stay focused on always improving. But if you're passionate about what you do and you stay focused on getting better every day, you will see more victories, which is important,” Ghezzi said.
“The kids need to have a great experience, and I think all our kids are having a good experience, but they're all going to say they want to win more. And I get that. And they keep score for a reason, right? As long as you're passionate and you're having a good experience, and you stay focused, eventually, that will change, just like everything else.”
Ghezzi stated that she grew up in the Cleveland area. She participated in both tennis and basketball while in high school and played Division I tennis at Ohio University. In her early entry into athletics as a career, she coached Division I tennis at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, for nine years.
After coaching various sports at various levels, Ghezzi fell in love with coaching basketball and became the assistant basketball coach at Case Western Reserve University and then Colgate University. Ghezzi then entered athletics administration and acted as the athletic director for various college and prep schools between Ohio and Massachusetts, where she eventually found her way to Northfield Mount Hermon School.
Outside of work, Ghezzi said that family is the most important thing to her. The person she has looked up to the most is her late mother, who she described as “the kindest, gentlest soul.” Ghezzi also stated that the achievement she’s most proud of is raising her daughter, Emma, who is currently studying at the University of Colorado Boulder.
“The confidence that she has, the voice that she grew, it has been really just a great accomplishment. I feel like I had a lot to do with that. But watching her grow up has been just really, without a doubt, the greatest achievement,” Ghezzi said.
For Ghezzi, her favorite sport to coach is basketball, and she told Mount Holyoke News that she has found a new love for playing and watching golf. Even after 24 years, she said that Mount Holyoke still feels like home to her, with many familiar coaches and administrators still in the athletics department.