Taylor_Peterson

Field Hockey

Written, created, and photographed by Taylor Peterson

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Dedicated to my younger sister, Morgan

This book is dedicated to the girl who has always been there for me. On and off the field hockey field, she never leaves my side. She supports me when I’m having a bad day and holds me close when I’m crying. She always knows exactly what to say and listens when I need someone to vent to. She makes me laugh, we share our secrets, and can read each other’s minds. We can have full, private conversations just by giving each other certain looks. And above everything else, she annoys the living daylights out of me. She’s everything I could ever ask for in a little sister and I am so thankful for her. I promise to be as great of a sister as I can possibly be. If she is ever in need of anything, I hope she knows she can always call on me.

Especially on the field, Morgan and I are inseperable. We know where we are on the field, we pass back and forth, and score every goal together. People mistake us for twins a lot, which makes us stand out even more. I can’t even begin to describe how lucky I am to have a sister who I am so close to. And I hope someday her athletic skills will take her far in life. It’s cliche, but I know for a fact that she’s destined for greatness.

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“I promise to be as great of a sister as I can possibly be.

If you are ever in need of anything, I hope you know you can always call on me.�

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Acknowledgements Thank you to Mr. Greco, my english teacher at Freestyle, for being an amazing teacher and staying patient with me and my chaotic ways. Without his class, my writing would not have improved as much as it has this year.

Thank you to the Gilroy Infinity Field Hockey Club for all the amazing pictures I took of their team and of many other teams at their annual Fool’s Fest Indoor Field Hockey Tournament.

Thank you to Austin Pile, the assisstant coach of the UC Davis women’s field hockey team. His interview gave my research the boost that it needed in order to successfully put my point across.

Thank you to Ms. Parkinson, my design teacher at Freestyle, for teaching me everything there is to know aboutt InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator. Without her, this book would not be possible.

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Thank you to the San Jose Fly Field Hockey Club for giving me interviews and allowing me to take so many awesome pictures of the team.

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Table of Contents Foreword..................................8 Introduction: Face-off.................10 Chapter 1: Strategic Development..13 Chapters 2: Behind the Lines.........18 Chapters 3: International Affairs....22 Conclusion: The Final Score..........26 7

Foreword

I started playing field hockey when I was in 8th grade. At first, I completely hated the sport because my mom had forced me into it. I was convinced that I was someday destined to be a soccer player. I had no interest in ever becoming a field hockey player. I didn’t even know field hockey actually existed. But as I continued to go to the practices my mother had signed me up for, I saw my skills and my attitude were improving greatly and eventually the sport made sense for me. I fell in love with it. And ever since then, I’ve never strayed away from field hockey. I felt awesome because I was the only one of my girl friends who played it, but it sucked because all of my guy friends made fun of it. They say only gay men play it and that it’s a wussy sport. This made me angry, especially since they were insulting my favorite sport, but then it occurred to me why they were acting so negatively towards it. Before I even picked up a stick for the first time myself, I portrayed a negative attitude towards it. They hate it because they’ve never played it. They just don’t know. They’re completely unaware of all the things that make the sport great. This is what my research is for. To unveil all the amazing attributes of the sport and even the physical risks it takes to play. I want to prove field hockey is a great sport that everyone should want to play, but at the same time, I want to prove how tough the sport really is.

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My research begins with my own personal story about how I fell in love with field hockey. You will read stories from my interviews about former college and Olympic athletes, both male and female, who are now both very talented coaches. You will learn many things about field hockey that will surprise you and that I’m sure you never would have guessed about the sport. I hope this book does its job and I hope maybe after you put down this book, you will feel compelled to pick up a stick.

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Introduction: Face-off

Have you ever been hit straight in the gut or in the leg by a field hockey ball traveling 45 miles per hour? It hurts. Contrary to popular belief, field hockey is a sport to be reckoned with. Most people with no firsthand experience like to say things like, “It’s a girly sport” or “The only men who play field hockey are gay.” Not true. Field hockey is played all over the world by a variety of male and female athletes, straight and gay.

Hockey teams are hosted at most high schools, mainly for girls’ teams and sometimes for a boys club. According to Courtney Hessler of the San Jose Fly Club team, “All the guys tell me it’s not a real sport because guys don’t play it, but guys do play it and it is a real sport. [Don’t let the skirts throw you off] because we’re definitely aggressive and go hard.” It may seem as though it is only a girl’s sport, but that is because most high schools that have a hockey team are usually girls.

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Yes, the high school league is not as impressive, but what people don’t know, is that every year there are hundreds of competitive tournaments that take place, filled with teams that play at their highest intensity. The current assistant coach of the UC Davis field hockey team, Austin Pile says, “I think it is one of the most intense sports out there. The fact that you have to be a little crazy to play it because you have a ball that can be traveling up to 100 miles per hour and all you get is a mouth guard and shin guards. You have to be a little nuts to even want to play, but then once you’re playing, especially at the highest level, it’s one of the most intense [and most fast-paced] sports. It can be high scoring, it can be low scoring, but the ball speed of the game is just so high that it’s the highest endurance sport around.”

This is the type of intensity Pile sees every year at each major national tournament.

I used to believe it was a “sissy” sport myself. It wasn’t until I played a real game for the first time that suddenly I became addicted. It was a Sunday morning and I hated my mom for waking me up so early for a club hockey practice I didn’t even want to sign up for in the first place. I reluctantly got out of bed and donned the

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field hockey gear my older sister had lent to me for the day. When I arrived at the practice, I was handed a stick and a ball. I carried a bad attitude with me as they tried to teach me how to hold the stick and control the ball. The Cal Berkeley Tournament was my first. I hated my mother so much more when she forced me out of bed at 5 AM on a Saturday for a sport I didn’t even like (or so I had thought). I met up with my team and we warmed up. I remember that first game so vividly. My heart began to race at the first blow of the ref’s whistle. Something came over me and suddenly I was racing here and there, going hard for the ball. I lost myself within the game. And the best rush of all was when I scored that first goal. I immediately fell in love with the game. It became my sport. It defined me in a way. That’s why I take it so personally when people who don’t even know the game, criticize the sport. If you insult field hockey, you’re insulting me. Don’t judge the sport from what you assume. Field Hockey has a history, a purpose, and at least a thousand passionate players.

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Chapter 1:

Strategic Development

What is field hockey? Field Hockey is a high intensity sport in which two teams (11v11 or 7v7 depending on the field size) compete by dribbling, passing, slapping, sweeping, or hitting a hard plastic ball into a rectangular goal with a composite stick.

11v11 games consist of 1 goalie and 10 field players and are normally played on football size fields while 7v7 games have 1 goalie and 6 field players and takes place on only a third of a football field. Most college tournaments hosted for local club teams are 7v7. Other major tournaments, like CalCup, the National Field Hockey Festival, the Disney Field Hockey Showcase, and many more are 11v11. Tournaments like such are hosted for teams from all over the world.

Field hockey dates all the way back to 200BC Greece, when the game was played with a horn and a ball-like object. The name, “hockey�, wasn’t derived until a 13

1363 proclamation, made by King Edward III of England, attempting to ban the sport and other “idle” games. From there, the modern day hockey we know today was developed when the first hockey club introduced a striking circle, or a scoring circle. The Hockey Association was founded in 1886, the first international game took place in 1895 in Ireland against Wales (Ireland 3, Wales 0), and the International Rules Board was founded in 1900 (Field Hockey, Wikipedia.com). “[Field hockey has] actually been a male Olympic sport since 1908. The female Olympic sport, they added it in the ‘30s,” informs former American Olympic athlete, Austin Pile.

Eventually, field hockey grew into the sport it is today. The wooden sticks turned to composite. Better plays and strategies were developed. And new stick skills were discovered and taught. Most field hockey athletes don’t begin their career until high school. Like myself, I wasn’t even aware of the sport’s existence until my older sister’s freshman year of high school when she tried out for her school team. But other athletes begin as early as the age of 10. That’s why the amount of kids signed up for

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u12 (under 12 years of age) or u14 (under 14 years of age) teams is so much smaller than the u16 and u19 groups. Parents are more likely to sign their kids up for a local soccer or baseball team instead of signing them up for a rougher sport that requires a stick and ball that could more easily cause injury. “[Field hockey is] an easy sport to learn the basics, it’s an impossible sport to master. So you can [be the most skilled player out there and] still be learning [little tricks] when you’re fifty, sixty, seventy years old,” says Pile.

Field hockey is just so much more dangerous. I will admit, it is an easy sport to learn and that’s the fun of it. Once you get how to play a game, you have a lot more fun when you know what you are doing. According to Mary Donahue, head coach of San Jose Fly, “Playing field hockey – especially in a game situation – requires the highest type of athletic intensity. A player is running and moving at top speed, hitting hard and making decisions in a split-second. You have to try and play without fear and attack hard, all at the same time. The higher level you play, the more intense the environment becomes.” When you are a part of a club team, like Fly, you get to enjoy playing alongside other athletes who also want to play just as competitively and who have the same skill level as you.

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Chapter 2: Behind the Lines

Beneath the high intensity and crazy stickwork of games, there’s a type of community that comes with being on a team. The tight-knit bond you create with your team and with your teammate’s families is indescribable. Everyone is there for each other; you’re all like sisters. Every mom is a mother to every athlete on the team. The dads are like the main cheerleaders who shout and root your team on as if each game was a super bowl.

Without this bond, a team cannot function. The best performing teams have the best internal relationships. “Meeting players from other schools and breaking down prejudices about other schools,” says Donahue. “I see kids from different schools form friendships that they would not have had otherwise. When they see each other either on a 18

Chapter 2: Behind the Lines

hockey field or just out and about, there’s a connection that wouldn’t be there otherwise.” Not only do you gain a cirlce of loving friends, but you get to play at college hosted tournaments and national tournaments. The National Field Hockey Festival and CalCup are popular tournaments at wich you can play against team from Florida or even all the way from China and Australia. Athletic recruitment definitely impacts a player’s ability to get into Universities. These tournaments gvie college coaches and national team coaches a chance to watch and scout players from all across the country.

Austin Pile helps coach at a program called Futures. Futures is a USA Field Hockey program for all field hockey athletes. “[There are] nine training sessions and at the end of the nine training sessions they go to a regional futures tournament,” Pile explains, “So they try out with all the other people in their region to be selected to a higher tournament. From your regional tournament you can be 19

selected to a higher tournament. From your regional tournament you can be selected into the national futures championship that’s held every June in Virginia Beach. At the national futures championship, that’s where selections for junior national teams are made. So the under 16, under 19, under 21 national teams are pulled from that pool.�

During the practice sessions, college coaches and players train the athletes at each of these sessions and help them perfect their basic skills and learn many new ones. The Futures program is a great place for players who are aspiring to be recruited for college or national teams. The program is available for hockey players in many different regions all across the country (Futures, usafieldhockey.com/futures). The Futures program has provided me with many opportunities most athletes would never be able to receive from any other program. It has helped me develop my skills, mentally and physically. It is only meant for self-improvement and exposure to the rest of the field hockey world.

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Chapter 3:

International Affairs

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Outside of US borders, field hockey in other countries is typically more balanced. In England, during the 2008–09 seasons there were 2488 men’s teams, 1969 women’s teams, 1042 boys’ teams, 966 girls’ teams and 274 mixed teams.

In the 2006 season the Irish Hockey Association reported that the gender split among its players was approximately 65% female and 35% male. In its 2008 census, Australia reported 40,534 male club hockey players and 41,542 female.

Within US borders, field hockey is more popular with the ladies.At every tournament I have ever been to, I could only count up to four boys’ teams at most. Even then, the boys’ games are just as intense and fast-paced. Playing mixed games are tons of fun too. I love going to a practice with a gender mix because playful competition is involved, not judgment.

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(left): A team picture of the Gilroy Infinity Field Hockey team at the National Field Hockey Festival. (below): A team picture of the San Jose Fly Field Hockey team after recieving bronze medals.

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Conclusion:

The Final Score Most of the people that judge field hockey are the people who have never before given the sport a chance. They don’t know how much fun it could be if they gave it a try. They are unaware of the friends they could make and the places they could go with it. Not only myself, but also my entire family plays field hockey. My mom played when she was in high school. My older sister, Lauren, plays for the UOP (University of the Pacific) field hockey team. My little sister plays on Gilroy Infinity alongside myself. And my dad helps coach the Infinity team and plays on an adult co-ed team every year for CalCup. Field hockey has given my family and me many opportunities that we would never have been able to experience otherwise. Personally, I have made countless accomplishments, been seen by so many college coaches, and have made millions of friends throughout the years. I honestly have no clue where I would be or what I would be doing today if I hadn’t had attended that first practice my mother signed me up for 4 years ago. So next time field hockey happens to come up in your mind, don’t think to judge it. Let your first thought be: How great could I become if I gave it a try?

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Bibliography “About Futures.” USA Field Hockey. Web. 10 Mar. 2012. <http://usafieldhockey.com/futures/about-futures>.

Donahue, Mary. “Coach’s Perspective.” E-mail interview. 7 Mar. 2012.

“Field Hockey.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 20 Mar. 2012.

Web. 11 Mar. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_hockey>.

Hessler, Courtney. “Player Perspective.” Personal interview. 10 Feb. 2012.

Pile, Austin. “Olympic Male Interview.” Personal interview. 25 Mar. 2012.

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