It was October 4th and Calle Nielson was in Charlottesville, Virginia at her alma mater’s football game against Pittsburgh. In a moment of clarity, while sitting in the stands, she knew it was where she belonged.
“I wasn’t for sure that I wanted to come back here, it’s different when you’re on this side of things,” said Nielson, about returning as an assistant coach where she was a three-time All-American as a player. “I was kind of nervous, but I went to the football game and realized this is where I want to be.”
On October 12th, three-year Epson Tour professional Nielson was introduced as the new assistant women’s golf coach at the University of Virginia.
“I’ve always wanted to come back here because I knew it is such a good community and it’s a great place to raise a family,” Nielson said. “To settle down here, it is almost a dream come true.”
The story of Coach Calle, as the players now call her, traces to one person – her college head coach, Kim Lewellen, who turned into her swing coach and now her boss.
“There are four people that have had the greatest influence on me - my mom and my dad and Kim – my coach (and now boss) and her husband,” Nielson said.
But Nielson’s relationship with Lewellen didn’t begin until after she had already committed to play golf at Virginia. During Nielson’s senior year of high school, the coach who had recruited her to Charlottesville, Jan Mann, retired and later took the coaching job at the University of North Carolina.
“To be honest, I was a little panicked,” Nielson said. “When I came to UVA as a player, I knew nothing about Kim and she knew nothing about me. She has turned into an absolute amazing influence on me and how my golf game has progressed and I get to learn from the best now.”
Sometimes a player-coach relationship ceases to exist after a player graduates. Not for Calle and Kim.
After a decorated career where she posted 17 top-10 finishes and helped the Cavaliers reach the NCAA Championships four years in a row, Nielson turned professional and decided to keep her college coach as her swing coach.
Over the last three years on the Epson Tour, Nielson posted five top-10 finishes and made the cut in 39 of 50 events. In 2014, she had her best season finishing 34th on the Volvik Race for the Card money list.
Yet Nielson knew coaching was the avenue she wanted to pursue.
“Having a coach that loved what she did and loved helping us helped me want to do what she did,” Nielson said. “You have so many girls on Tour that if you ask them if they liked their college coach they would say no. The fact that I loved mine and I still have a relationship with mine says a lot about her.”
Nielson possesses a unique ability to immediately connect with anyone she encounters. It’s her endearing personality and her caring nature that makes her a great fit for the coaching fraternity.
“I’m a people person and I am going to be around people all the time and yes these girls are younger than me, but it is nice to have them look up to you,” she said.
Similar to Sara Brown, who recently took a gig for the remainder of 2014 at Golf Channel, Nielson is not ready to give up her title of professional golfer. Because of her strong finish on the Epson Tour in 2014, she’ll have status in 2015 and expects to play in some events after May when her schedule allows.
Last week, one of her new players came up to her and said, “Coach Calle, I’m going to get good enough to play against you one day.”
Nielson responded, “You’re good enough to play against me now.”
It’s these teaching moments and these opportunities to connect with the next generation of professional golfers where Nielson will thrive.
These days, she is busy in her empty-for-now office processing equipment orders, handling the social media for the women’s golf program, preparing for a compliance test so she can begin to recruit and organizing for the next tournament, which is The Landfall Tradition in Wilmington, North Carolina from October 24-26.
Go get ‘em, coach.
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