After almost two decades on the job, longtime Wareham High School coach Cindy Sylvia is stepping down from her coaching positions so she may spend more time coaching her son.

Sylvia helps coach her 10-year-old son, Quincy, in four different sports. Sylvia said she has “just a couple more years to enjoy that,” before her son turns 12 and starts moving away from wanting his mother to double as his coach.

“I think every athlete I ever coached knew the choice was going to be [my son] Quincy,” Sylvia said. “I don’t want to miss a second, since he is my only son.”

For the past 19 years, Sylvia has been a coach at Wareham High School. She coached softball from 1996 to 2013, basketball from 1997 to 2007, and soccer from 1996 to 2014. She recently accepted a position as head of Career, Culture, and Wellness at the high school, in which she said she oversees everything that is not MCAS testing.

Sylvia said she is the only woman who helps to coach her son’s teams, and that, as a woman, it is “a unique experience for a mom to do that for her son.”

“It takes a lot for a woman to gain the respect of the other coaches, because they're not sure what to expect,” Sylvia said. “But everyone has been great. There is mutual respect for what I can do, and what everyone can do.”

Sylvia said she owes a lot to those she has coached with over the years, as well as her own coaches when she was an athlete. She said hopes she has passed on what her own coaches taught her.

“At the end of the day, how they feel about themselves is more important than any score,” Sylvia said. “They will remember friends, they will remember experiences, the way they felt about themselves, and each other.”

She believes she has left behind a legacy of confident women athletes at the high school.

“Wareham kids are special. Absolutely, positively, start to finish,” Sylvia said. “Some of them have even returned to Wareham High School as coaches, so it’s a legacy of coaches, too.”

Sylvia also said she could not have done this without her wife of 29 years by her side.

“She has survived all my sports, and even coached alongside me,” Sylvia said. “It's part of her, too.”

Sylvia said she may return to coaching Viking athletes in the future, but in the meantime her athletes should listen for her in the stands.

“I told my soccer players it doesn’t mean they aren’t going to hear my voice yelling at a game or two,” she said.