More often than not, our lives don’t take the path we think they will. Starting off in the corporate business world, Nicole Shattuck now works with Division 1 athletes at Duke University and Team USA Women’s Lacrosse.
The Early Days
How did Nicole end up going from the corporate world to a strength and conditioning coach at a DI university and Team USA?
Nicole got her undergraduate in business and then got a job in marketing. Going to the gym and working her 9-5 wasn’t cutting it. Eventually, someone asked if she had considered personal training. After getting her certification, her day suddenly was busy with a full-time marketing job and taking on clients in the off hours. Over time she built her personal training business, transitioning it to be her main focus.
At 27, Nicole decided to take a big step and open up her own personal training facility. It was a sink-or-swim situation that she’s really proud of,
“Believe in yourself and take pride in what you do.”
While she had her own business, she started working with a local crew (rowing) high school team. She realized that she wanted to work with athletes, “I was like oh, this is what I want to do. I want to work with people who want to put in the time and effort and see it pay off.” It looked like working with athletes, specifically collegiate athletes, was in the cards for the future.
Playing basketball and softball in high school, and ice hockey in college, Nicole was no stranger to the demands of athletics, but she still didn’t have the education or certification to be a coach. So she packed up her stuff and moved from Rochester, NY where she had been her whole life up until that moment and moved for an unpaid strength and conditioning internship at MSU Denver to work with collegiate athletes.
Unpaid internships are unfortunately part of the normal process of becoming a strength and conditioning coach, so she took on seven part-time gigs to make ends meet, “No one has the same opportunity, sometimes you have to make your own.” Many of the things she’s done outside of specifically strength and conditioning have only contributed to her tool box and made her who she is today. She calls it the “pressure cooker”.
Nicole then got her masters, – another requirement to be a strength and conditioning coach – CSCS certification and moved through the collegiate world until she ended up here at Duke.
Working with Duke & Team USA
With World Championships coming up for Team USA Women’s Lacrosse box team in September, Nicole has been busy traveling for training camps. She’s been the women’s box and women’s sixes strength and conditioning coach since last fall. Sixes recently got sanctioned as an Olympic event, so they will not compete this summer in Paris, but they do have their eyes set on 2028.
How did she end up at Duke? Working with seven teams at Bucknell University, when the opportunity to come to Duke and focus only on two teams –Women’s Lacrosse and Track & Field this year – was a no-brainer. Nicole says it allows for more consistency with the team. Instead of only being able to make some games and practices, she was suddenly able to be at all practices, scrimmages, home and away events, and coordinate a lot more with the athletic trainers.
On top of working with Duke athletes and Team USA’s Lacrosse Team. She’s currently the chairperson for the National Strength and Conditioning Association Lacrosse Special Interest Group. Additionally, they have a podcast called Outside the Crease that Nicole works on – not without a lot of other help. There they talk about anything and everything lacrosse-related by conversing with sports coaches, athletic performance coaches, sports scientists, nutritionists, and more. You can find them on Spotify and Instagram @nsca_lacrosseig.
Advice for fellow women
Being a woman in any profession, never mind a male-dominated profession can present its challenges, but it doesn’t have to define us.
“Don’t worry about being the best female strength and conditioning coach. Make it your goal to just be the best coach in the room. Sometimes the idea of female/male can get to you, and if you focus on it too much, it will set you back. This can go for any career out there, just be the best in the room whether it’s the best accountant, teacher, engineer, graphic designer, etc. That’s what will get you far.” says Nicole.
“You also have to believe in yourself. It’s really easy to get hard on ourselves. Being a strength and conditioning coach is not for the faint of heart. You have to know your stuff because people are relying on you, and this goes for anybody. You got to be willing to bet your career on it, and your athlete’s career on it, and that can be a really tough thing. So be smart, reach out to people in your network, and believe in yourself.”
One of her favorite quotes from Rachel Balkovec, the first woman to hold a strength and conditioning coach position in the Major League Baseball and currently the Director of Player Development for the Miami Marlins:
“If you don’t feel like quitting once or twice, you’re not close enough to the edge.”
To add onto that, Nicole says, “Don’t give up. Sometimes in your darkest hours, you just have to wait a little bit longer to see the light. Your people in your corner will always fight for you, but you always got to fight for yourself.”
Lastly, “Lift each other up, celebrate your fellow females”.
Written by Hannah Sherwood
Hannah currently works with varsity athletics at the Colorado School of Mines as an assistant strength and conditioning coach. She holds a B.S. in Integrative Physiology & space minor at the University of Colorado-Boulder and is currently pursuing her master’s degree in sports nutrition. Hannah was a competitive rower at the University of Colorado-Boulder and now pursues Weightlifting and CrossFit.
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