American International College

Donna (Crum) Coombs was one of the original members of the AIC softball team when the College first began sponsoring women’s athletics programs.

She went on to have a Hall of Fame high school coaching career, where she was most recognized for her work with the Cathedral and West Springfield High School girl’s soccer teams. Coombs began her coaching career at Cathedral, where she coached basketball, soccer and softball from 1971-75; her 1975 soccer team went a perfect 10-0 for the season.

She then made the move to West Springfield, where she guided the girl’s soccer team to a record of 292-55-35 in 20 seasons, making her the fourth-winningest girls high school soccer coach in the country. She helped West Springfield capture nine league titles, five Western/Central Mass titles, and one Western Mass title in 1995, a year in which the team advanced to semifinals of the state championship tournament. It was her final season at West Springfield High School.

After a successful run on the high school sidelines, she transitioned to the college ranks, taking over at Westfield Stats where she recorded a 44-27-4 mark in four seasons from 1996-99. The 1997 Owls’ squad won the conference championship and totaled a then school-record 15 wins.

Among her many accolades, Coombs was named the 1983 recipient of the Aime Levesque Award for long-time service to the youth of West Springfield, and in that same year the Western Mass Division I Girls Soccer League was renamed the Coombs Division in her honor. In 1988, she was presented the Franklin Select Circle Girls Soccer Coach Silver Award, a national high school coaching award that is presented in cooperation with Scholastic Coach Magazine for superlative performance and dedication to the student-athlete. Coombs was later named the Larry Briggs Award recipient in 1994 for outstanding contributions to high school soccer, and was inducted into the Massachusetts High School Soccer Hall of Fame in 2002.