Christmas arrived early for Leslie Caito-Jones this year. Saturday, Nov. 5, to be exact.
Caito-Jones’s Moses Brown field hockey team presented her the Rhode Island Interscholastic League State Championship Trophy, gift-wrapped in a 3-1 triumph over long-time rival East Greenwich. The title was her seventh with the Quakers and came just two seasons after her return to coaching. She had stepped aside after the 2018 season so she could watch her daughter Kennedy as a mom, not as her coach. Kennedy had just completed her first season at Moses Brown, a private school on the East Side of Providence.
“When I retired I had no intention of coming back. It was really about being there and watching my daughter. Two years of watching her play field hockey was so much fun,” Jones told me last week a few days before Moses Brown closed for the holidays.
Eager to begin her coaching career, Caito-Jones arrived on Moses Brown’s campus in 1999. Young, ambitious and passionate, she was confident her sterling credentials as a player would help her transition from field to sideline as she took over a struggling program. She was the player of the year at Chelmsford High School in Massachusetts and a two-time captain, all-conference, and regional All-America center back at the University of Rhode Island, where, as a senior, she led the Rams to a Top 20 ranking.
She also benefited from growing up in an athletic family — four brothers played Division I football and two sisters played Division I field hockey.
And coaching was in her blood. Her father, Tom Caito, played football at Mount Pleasant High School in Providence and at Boston University. He coached football , mostly high school, for 41 years, retiring with a record of 248-75. He won six state championships — at Central High School in Providence and at Holliston and Chelmsford High Schools in Massachusetts. He was also the first football coach at Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass. He is 85 now and retired, but five years ago he volunteered to assist his nephew David with the offensive line and defensive ends at West Warwick High School.
“I watched my father coach my whole life. Every day I learned something new. He is one of the most driven, disciplined persons I have ever met. Ever. Dad was my role model. I never wanted to disappoint him,” Caito-Jones said.
Winning did not come easily for the Quakers and their new coach. First, she had to change the culture. “I had a way I wanted to do things. At Moses Brown I felt like I was in another world. Kids were showing up 45 minutes late,” she said.
Caito-Jones met with her co-captains early that first season and explained how things would be. Slowly but surely, the team bought into the Caito-Jones way. “I was tough,” she said.
Still, victory proved elusive. From 2001 through 2005 The Quakers were 13-74-3 against stiff competition. Caito-Jones missed the 2003 season because she was pregnant. In 2006 she took a deep breath and dropped the program to Division II. She also promised MB would return to Division I before long.
“You have to go through the bumps to get to the other side. I said we will rebuild the program and compete.”
The change of scenery worked. Moses Brown compiled a 43-3-2 record in three Division II seasons, went undefeated in 2006 and 2008 and won DII titles in 2006, 2007 and 2008.
“We changed the culture,” she said. “Winning does so much. Winning isn’t everything, but it’s part of it, especially here. Kids want to win. In 2006 no one could touch us. 2007 was an incredible surprise. That’s one of the ones I remember.”
The Quakers moved back to Division I in 2009 and turned in a 6-9-1 record, their last losing season. “There was life in that record. We were competing. We were in the mix,” she said.
From 2010 through 2018 they reached nine consecutive Division I semifinals, won the Division I championship in 2012, 2013 and 2014 and reached the final in 2015, 2017 and 2018. Their record was 120-12-10.
Maura Strickland O’Rourke, Caito-Jones’s assistant, coached the Quakers in 2019 and the COVID-shortened 2020 season.
“I felt it was important to give Kennedy her space. She could have been a Division 1 [college] player, but she didn’t love it. It’s not who she is,” Caito-Jones said of her daughter.
When Strickland O’Rourke took a family leave in 2021, Caito-Jones agreed to coach for a year. As athletics program coordinator at Moses Brown, she had remained close to the program. Plus, Kennedy was a senior.
“Returning was the best thing I did. It was the best, having time with her. She got to understand me as a coach, and I got to understand her as a player. I loved every second of it,” she said. That veteran team lost to East Greenwich in the Division I final.
“We had 12 seniors. They were an incredible group of kids. They made me laugh. They allowed me to push them.”
For various reasons, Caito-Jones remained in 2022 and coached a young MB team to a 14-1-1 record in the new State Championship Division and the title. “We were very young but probably one of the most talented teams I have ever had,” she said.
How did Moses Brown go from struggles to sustained success in two decades?
“Players definitely bought into the program. Field hockey players want to come here now to play field hockey. We also have tremendous athletes. We have a phenomenal lacrosse program, and half my team plays lacrosse,” Caito-Jones said.
“The level of athlete I’ve seen come through here in the last 10 years, these kids train year-round. They didn’t do that back in the day. These are clearly student-athletes here.”
Just as sports were a focal point in her family when she was growing up, so have they been for her own family. She met her husband LaJhon at URI. He was a star linebacker for the Rams football team — good enough to spend two seasons on the San Diego Chargers practice squad. He returned to Rhode Island, taught history and physical education and coached football, eventually becoming head coach at Moses Brown and later Durfee High School in Fall River. He resigned after three seasons at Durfee so he could watch their son LaJhon, Jr., play football and lacrosse at La Salle Academy, and lacrosse at Bryant and now Rutgers for the next two seasons.
“LaJhon and I would say it’s the most enjoyable experience we could have,” Caito-Jones said of cheering for their children and their teammates. “There’s nothing better than watching our kids on the field. We have been blessed with kids who have been successful.”
Coaching is almost as rewarding, and Caito-Jones intends to lead the Quakers field hockey program for the next three seasons with Strickland O’Rourke as her assistant. She laughed when I suggested that even after 21 seasons she just wants to keep driving the championship express with her latest group of talented players. “With Kennedy in college [Suffolk] LaJhon and I are here; we’re not going to move. Maura and I sat down and put a plan together. Let’s go three more years together, and that’s it for me.”
Leslie Caito-Jones has accomplished what she set out to do when she arrived at Moses Brown in 1999. She has instilled a culture of doing things the right way, of practicing and playing hard while still having fun.
“We did build a program here that is competitive. We put Moses Brown on the map. I’m very proud.”