Remembering 'Coach' Shannon Donovan

Coach Joe DiGiacomo leans back in his chair to look at the photos of graduated student athletes. His desk is scattered with faxes and papers, but every picture and newspaper clipping is framed and gleaming on his walls. Just down the hallway is where his coworker and companion Donovan used to pour over activity plans from seven to four o’clock, five days a week. 

"My first memory was probably the first day of school here, when we had 70 kids in the gym. She asked me, she goes, 'Can you handle this?'" DiGiacomo said. "I'm at a loss of words a lot when it comes to her. She’d be the first one here [on campus], sometimes the last one here. She always had something going on. Her thought was, ‘If it’s not getting done, who’s going to do it?’ so she did it. She had something on her menu every day.”

Her impact on Pine View far exceeds any position one can attach to her name. To think of Pine View is to think of Donovan — from the $60,000 she helped the class of 2007 raise to build a Habitat for Humanity house, to the vibrant parking lines in the teachers’ parking lot, which she would spend her summers painting.  

"If there was a meaning of Pine View, she's got to be up there. She's got to be in there," DiGiacamo said. 

She began her Pine View tenure in 1979 as a PE aide. Before retiring in 2013, she taught both elementary- and middle-school gym classes and coached the tennis, track-and-field, and street hockey teams.  

Donovan and Tucak coached track together; working alongside Donovan led Tucak to coaching the boys and girls volleyball teams. Wholly dedicated to athletics, Donovan continued supporting Pine View’s teams post-retirement, attending meets and matches regularly.  

More than just a faculty member, Donovan was a friend, a confidant, a shoulder to laugh or cry on. Her close friendship with former assistant principal, Gail Abrams, best exemplified this. The duo volunteered and sponsored classes together. They both ended up retiring in 2013 alongside former principal Steve Largo, who notes that he, his wife, Abrams, and Donovan would get together every two months to reminisce and go on long walks.

Principal Dr. Stephen Covert  commented  on Donovan's inextricable impact on Pine View, writing that her passing is "an opportunity for us to remember the power of the potential impact we can have on our students' lives, and make the most of every second we have with them, with each other, and with our families." 

Donovan was known as the person who, according to Tucak, had a hug or high-five for every kid on campus, whether they were in grade two, twelve, or somewhere in between. 

When class of 2013 alumna Sarah Brickman was in elementary school, she worked alongside Donovan during a school supply drive. Their connection motivated Brickman to write  Donovan’s retirement story  in the school newspaper, The Torch.

“She was always so supportive of students of all ages, and she really deeply cared about ‘sharing our gifts,’ as Mr. Largo would say. She wanted the school to foster a desire, or commitment, in the students ... She wanted Pine View students to [look] beyond themselves," Brickman said. "In that way, she certainly left a huge mark on my life and Pine View as a whole because she really instilled through the school this larger purpose of serving others however we could."

Alumni and staff shared their condolences and memories via Facebook. Their comments prove what Tucak put best: "There wasn't any person who didn't love Coach Donovan." 

"Beyond sad," social studies teacher Christine Braun wrote. "No words."

"So sad.....she was a wonderful person and friend," wrote former Spanish teacher Patti Gerlek, who retired in 2020.

"My heart breaks," alumna Jessica Kolodgy wrote. "She was one of my favorite people. I would seek her out in times of stress, sadness, or frustration...We had fallen out of touch but her importance in my young life will never be forgotten." 

"Shannon was always a clear example of the good in this world. She was always thinking what she could do to benefit our school community as well as be an outstanding role model for students," former administrator Brenda George wrote. "She will continue to be a blessing." 

"A handful of people at PV made a true impact in my life and Coach was definitely one of the top three," alum Justin Buszin wrote. "I remember she wanted to teach me how to change a tire once I started to drive." 

"Coach Donovan was always so positive & enthusiastic," alumna Caroline Simon wrote, "and she used to make me laugh every single day at PE - despite how much I sucked at every sport." 

"I never had her as a teacher, but she ... was my family's neighbor on Alta Vista Street. I will never forget her kindness when our cat was hit by a car and she came out to help me and just took over when she saw the situation and she later buried him at the new campus," alum David Browman Jr. wrote. 

Donovan’s dedication to Pine View was highly respected, even in the formative years of her career. 

“I had heard about how important she was before I even started [in 1988]. Over the years, it just grew and grew and grew, and she just did more and more and more. When we first started back then, we were a relatively small school... She had an impact then, but that grew geometrically,” Largo said.  

Largo established the activities coordinator position to encompass all that Donovan did at Pine View. A single-spaced, front-and-back sheet detailing all the activities happening on campus was released weekly; Donovan “had a hand in practically every single one of them,” Largo said.  

From Peramathon to the Pine View Fair, from graduation ceremonies to the Variety Show, if there was ever anything happening on campus, Donovan was part of it.  

She was the one who coordinated fundraising opportunities each year, a model that still exists today when it comes to which classes host and receive funds from events like Variety Show and Mr. and Miss Pine View. To continue these fundraisers’ successes, Donovan established shadowing systems — these are still an integral part of how annual events work on campus. 

Donovan was the glue that held countless projects — and Pine View itself — together; even still, she was always all about the kids and never about herself. According to Tucak, that is part of the reason why photos of her are hard to come by. 

“She was so student-centered, so kind, so kid-oriented. She was a role model for the entire staff. Whoever you talked to had kind words to say about Coach Donovan, and that's because she literally would do anything for everything that she was involved in,” Largo said.  

Pine View’s school-wide dedication to community service was cemented by its response to the Sept. 11 attacks — a response largely led by Donovan.  

Hurricane Gabrielle hit Florida days after Sept. 11, leading to schools closing and response projects being delayed. Donovan didn’t let Gabrielle hinder Pine View’s Sept. 11 relief program; she ran a call tree that operated even as electricity started giving out in the area, spreading word of Pine View’s plan to help donate work gloves to sanitation workers at Ground Zero. When students returned to school, Tucak recalls each student bringing at least 10 pairs of gloves; though  the Herald Tribune reported that Pine View collected 500 , Tucak said that the number was more like 5,000 by the end of the week.  

“It was such a great community effort between all the students and staff, and that’s just the kind of person she was. It was never about her at all — it was always about others and that’s the way she lived her life. She was a very special person,” Tucak said. 

After their Sept. 11 project, Donovan and Largo met each summer to plan a new school-wide community service project for that school year. Students of all grades would get involved, and the projects would fulfill a need that students could rally behind. These projects included but were not limited to raising over $4,000 and donating 4,000 pounds of food to All Faiths Food Bank, as well as creating relief programs for schools in Florida that’d been hit by hurricanes.  

“It was Coach Donovan who was the one collecting things, organizing things, loading up trucks, contacting who we were working with — she was amazing. Her work was incredibly gratifying and reinforcing for me personally but way more important than that. My message of having each student share their gifts was embraced by students and staff, and it's because Coach Donovan was the role model. She was the one who was walking the walk and talking the talk, so she really made it all happen,” Largo said.  

Donovan — the colleague, the mentor, the coach, the friend — embodied Pine View itself. Her legacy lives on through shadow applications advertised over the morning announcements, each respective high school cohort's fundraising processes, DiGiacomo’s hopes of reinstating a volleyball team, and Tucak’s work as the middle-school track coach today. Her impact on Pine View is something that will continue to be felt in generations to come.