Kelly Pickering, Mattituck High girls volleyball coach, dies at 49

Kelly Pickering coached high schoolers in Mattituck and counseled grade schoolers in Cutchogue with a maternal nature — whether it was a volleyball player after a gut-wrenching loss, a misbehaving student in need of discipline or a family in the community in need of something more.

Pickering, a guidance counselor at Cutchogue East Elementary School, routinely checked on student Nicholas Perrin to see how the fourth grader was handling the deaths of his maternal and paternal grandfathers just weeks apart.

"To have a young child go through such massive loss in seven weeks' time — without the support of Kelly Pickering, it would have been an impossible time for our family," the boy's father, Dave Perrin, told Newsday. "My wife was in the hospital at the time with pneumonia. It was a very trying time for us, and Kelly was a rock and someone we could really count on."

That was four years ago.

Wrenching loss

Now, the Perrin family, like so many others throughout the Mattituck-Cutchogue school district, are mourning another wrenching loss.

Pickering, also the Mattituck Jr. Sr. High School girls volleyball coach, died on Sunday at age 49.

She was "surrounded by her family," which includes her spouse and their 5-year-old son, after a medical episode while they were "just having a nice night together" watching the Winter Olympics, Mattituck-Cutchogue school district Superintendent Shawn Petretti told Newsday.

"No one can believe that this is true," Petretti added. "You’re talking about a healthy, athletic 49-year-old woman, so no one can believe that this has actually happened. The district is in shock right now."

Pickering’s reach as a counselor and coach stretched from providing anti-bullying lessons in elementary school classrooms to leading the Mattituck High School girls volleyball team into the county championships on multiple occasions. During a Monday morning meeting with the district’s mental health team, school officials soon understood that what word of her death the evening before would mean to students, teachers and the wider schools community.

"We started thinking who is this really going to hit, and it was a little overwhelming to really think about it," Petretti said. "Kelly is somebody that everyone depended on."

A staple of Mattituck athletics

Pickering coached the high school and junior high girls volleyball teams, as well as the junior high girls basketball team. In previous years, she coached softball and track and field or, as Mattituck-Cutchogue athletic director Greggory Wormuth put it, she took on "anything I ever needed."

"She was a staple in the Mattituck athletic program," Wormuth added.

Mattituck volleyball player Stella Tatarka said Pickering, whom the team referred to as "Pick," "pushed the team to work as hard as we could ... out of love." The coach helped Tatarka learn to stop sweating "the small mistakes," to "brush things off" and get back in the game, a lesson she found applies to everyday life.

"A sport can be mentally draining, and I feel like her being a counselor really helped," said Tatarka, 17, of East Marion. Falling short of the Suffolk County championship during her last chance as a senior in November was "emotional for me," she added, but Pickering guided her through the loss.

"She knew how hard it was for me, and she sat on the bus ride with me all the way back home," the teen said. "It’s still hard, especially now that she’s gone. I’m glad I got to have my last season with her. It meant a lot that we got to end it together. I just wish that she could keep going."

The Suffolk County Girls Volleyball Coaches Association honored Pickering as one of the coaches of the year in 2025, "which is voted on by her peers," Wormuth said.

"She was well-respected," the athletic director said. "I’ve had several different coaches and athletic directors from around Suffolk County reach out to me over the past day ... remembering Kelly as such a class act and a positive person and a pleasure to be with when competing against their school."

High fives and hugs

The "tough love" that "Coach Pick" had for her high school athletes was gentler for students at the elementary school, according to volleyball player Claire McKenzie.

"The way she acted so much like a mom to the kids was so cute," McKenzie, 17, of Laurel, said of seeing Pickering interact with elementary schoolers. "To [her athletes], she does act like a mom too, which we love. But at the elementary school, she was running around, giving high fives and hugs."

Pickering took to coaching shortly after joining the district as Cutchogue East Elementary School counselor in 2009, according to Petretti. In addition to her counseling duties, Pickering became the elementary school’s dean of students starting this year. Her new "disciplinary role" entailed working "with students and families to help everyone understand why certain behaviors were happening and then educate the students on their behaviors," the superintendent added. She also served as a union representative for the Mattituck-Cutchogue Teachers Association.

"First and foremost she really cared, she really dove all in," Petretti said. "She loved working with kids. She loved helping people, be it the adults or the students."