Tag: field hockey

Rehearsal is over for the spring as our Leopards will journey to Conshohocken, Pa and the ” Proving Grounds” to meet the Wildcats of Villanova at noon on Saturday . This part of the year is when we get to see who will fill the gaps left by the seniors. It is a time of testing and experimentation by coach and players alike. There are obvious questions to be answered. How is the overall team speed look with the absence of Ellen Colbourne in the lineup?  Where will the scoring come from ? Will there be players moved to different positions  now that many have that additional year of experience?

Looking at last year’s results the Leopards will look to improve on their 2-4 finish in the league. Especially grating was the overtime loss to Lehigh 1-0. Lehigh will travel to Lafayette this year as the Leopards look for revenge. A win would have put the Leopards in the league playoffs. Likewise they will be looking to reverse 3 years of losses to Holy Cross. Boston University is always tough but will have to contend with a Lafayette home field as will American University. A trip to Colgate is always tough especially later in the year.

The Leopards finished with 30 goals ( five more than last year) with 19 of those goals scored by returning players.  They will need more offense, as the top two teams, Boston and American scored 67 and 62 goals respectively while giving up 37 and 31 goals at the same time. Lafayette gave up 46. Goal tending was about the same as all three had a mid 60 pct save percentage.

Lafayette generated 47 corners in league games, and led the league in that category. Lafayette’s in league performance must improve as they scored only 7 goals and gave up 15 in the conference. Boston was 25/5, American was 19/7, Holy Cross 17/15,Bucknell was 10/8, Colgate 6/21 and Lehigh 4/18.

Villanova returns many starters with three of their sophomores having scored 18 of their  34 goals. They are losing one of their best scorers Francesca Bello who scored 8 goals last season. Their top scorers are sophs Lydia Sydney, Amy Siana and Megan Vermeil each with 6 goals.

At this writing the format is undisclosed and I would imagine it’ll be three abbreviated periods with perhaps a shoot out at the end. The “Proving Grounds” is about 10 miles for from the Villanova Campus. The GPS address is 725 Conshohocken Rd. Conshohocken,Pa 19428.

 

Today, February 17, Amy Tran Swensen will be inducted into the National Field Hockey Hall of Fame at a gala affair at the Lord Baltimore Hotel in Baltimore, Maryland. She was an assistant to Head Coach Andrew Griffiths in 2007 and 2008. Amy worked with the goalkeepers and defense while at Lafayette. Even then she had made her mark in the field hockey community and was the starting goalkeeper in 2008 Olympics. She also appeared in the 2012 London Olympics. The US team got into the Olympic field at the Olympic Qualifiers Tournament  with Tran recording three shutout wins against Russia, France and India. She was regarded as the best goalkeeper in the world, after the 2006 World Cup.

While an assistant Coach at Lafayette she coached all american goal keeper Kelsey Andersen

Tran Swensen was member of the U.S. Women’s National Team from 2001-2013 and accumulated 163 international caps. She also appeared in five Champion Challenge Events where she was named Goalkeeper of the Tournament multiple times.

She graduated from the University of North Carolina in 2002 with a degree in Communication and Speech and Hearing Sciences where she received multiple all league and all american honors.

Amy is currently an assistant coach with Old Dominion University and resides in Virginia Beach with her husband Mark and their sons Ivan and Zeke.

Several weeks ago my wife and I got a call from Missy Meharg the head coach of the University of Maryland field hockey team asking us to serve on the Board of Trustees for the USA Field Hockey Foundation. As parents and grandparents of field hockey players and an active supporter of the game through our activities at Lafayette College we were indeed interested to further promote the game nationally. We have seen an evolution not only in Field Hockey over the last 30 years,  but in women’s sports in general. However, since field hockey in the United States holds a special place for women as a scholastic and collegiate sport, we believe its promotion can play a.unique role in supported athletics for women.

Within days, of Coach Meharg’s phone call,  the chair of the USA Field Hockey Foundation, Pam Stuper, the Head Coach at Yale, made a visit to our house to explain the role that the Foundation plays in the promotion and development of the sport.

My wife can remember field hockey of the 60’s, not only playing on grass, but with restrictive rules, and in her case it was purely an intramural sport in high school,  with a similar role in colleges. It really wasn’t until Title IX and the intercollegiate explosion of the sport, on the collegiate level, that the game started to take off. Ironically, it was an Olympic sport for the longest time, introduced to this country at the turn of the century.

As the opportunities for competition increased, rules were modified, playing surfaces improved the game, which demanded improved athletic skills. At Lafayette, women were first admitted in 1972 and field hockey was one of the first sports offered. It was played on an undulating grass field, a far cry from the technically superior astro-turf 12 presently in use. Today, virtually every Division One field is of this type. In fact, a NCAA sanctioned post season game is mandated to be played on that or similar surfaces. Lafayette had an initial schedule of about  4 games,there were no lights, no stands and few fans to watch the games.

Likewise the governance of the sport evolved as the athletes improved. Today, there is even a new professional league which will provide funding and competition for our highest elite players.

It’s within this context that Pam and I decided to become members of the Board. At first you may think it’s responsibility is just to fund the Olympic Team. Today, it defines its mission as, Grow the Game, Serve Members, and Succeed Internationally. 

It’s the first element that attracted us, because everything follows from that. Under the able chairmanship of Pam Stuper, this energetic Board, along with the Board of USA Field Hockey has mapped up a series of events to serve the sport at many levels.

For example, there is a first ever Field Hockey Summit being held in Baltimore March 16-18. ( See the USA Field Hockey web site for details). It is designed to promote and develop the sport not only for current participants but future generations, uniting the community  and harnessing everyone’s passion through a shared weekend experience. There are three days of clinics and presentations for umpires, coaches, players, and fans. It would be too cumbersome to detail all the events here but I urge you to go the web site and click to see everything that is offered. Included in the weekend is a gala dinner where people will be inducted to the Field Hockey Hall of Fame on Saturday.

Yes, the Foundation still supports the US national team with generous grants and events, but I think it and US Field Hockey will be totally served by Growing The Game!! As the 2020 games approach I can see the excitement build and Pam and I are excited to be a small part of it. We live close by Spooky Nook, the national practice facility for the team, and it gives us an extra incentive to go and cheer on these hardworking athletes who represent our nation so admirably!!

In a newsletter sent to alumni,parents, and fans Head Coach Jennifer Stone announced plans to take the Lafayette Field Hockey team to Capetown, South Africa to compete with local teams and sample life in a different culture.  In her newsletter, Coach Stone explains the reasons for the trip. ” My objective for the Lafayette Field Hockey program is to create an opportunity where every player who plays for LCFH gets to experience hockey abroad. Hockey is a worldly sport, as reflected in our own team here at Lafayette. To be able to play and EXPERIENCE hockey abroad is an incredible gift…….Our previous tours have been to Holland, London and Barcelona. Every graduating player since 2013 has experienced a hockey tour abroad.”  

Stone noted that the trip was made possible by the significant generosity from our supporters, families, friends, and alumni. She wants to continue the tradition and the pay the same gift forward to our future leopards.

The team will leave on May 29th and return June the 7th. They will play four matches at local clubs and will have a clinic by a professional coach while there. They will also provide a clinic of their own to less privileged students through the courtesy of the Goededacht Trust.

They will also have a chance to Safari at the Aquila Game Reserve, do team surfing, visit Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned, visit the Cape of Good Hope and sample a traditional African dinner and dancing, among other activities.

The team will have to prepare for the trip by having additional practices starting May 20th before leaving by plane from JFK. They will need several vaccines according to team physician Dr. Jeff Goldstein including shots for Hep A and typhoid.

OFF SEASON WORK CONTINUES 

Upon return to campus the team began a series of workouts and exercises to prepare for the spring season. They expect to be back on the turf in March in anticipation of the spring competitions. As of now the following schedule is anticipated:

Saturday March 24 @ Villanova 12 pm

Friday April 6 Monmouth at 6 pm @ home

Sunday April 8 @  Penn for a tournament

Saturday April 14 @ Columbia for a tournament

Saturday April 21 there is a tournament @ home

EXTERNSHIPS

Using Lafayette’s extensive alumni network many team members were able experience externships during the break. Liza Welch visited schools and businesses in the Boston Area including Harvard Business School and the Harvard Medical School. Jenn DeLongis was at a private law firm and sat in on several criminal case hearings. Adriana Pero had an externship with Dr. Susan Pannullo a noted neurosurgeon at New York Presbyterian Hospital, and Cameron Costello shadowed a neonatal surgeon and worked in the NICU. She also got to scrub into a C section!!!

There is other news which I will follow up on in the near future!!

It never ceases to confound me when I hear from time to time from non-athletes, “so what’s the point.”  Or, ” as a college we are not in the business of training professional athletes.” I usually grit my teeth and remind them all, as an undergraduate institution no one on the day they get their diploma will be qualified to do brain surgery, run a multi-billion dollar company, argue in front of the Supreme Court, or totally design a new giant skyscraper.

What happens in those 4 years is to build a foundation, that can be used to garner and harness all their education to accomplish many things. They will be citizens who shape their environment, politically and physically. Athletics is part of that education and ( I know I will irritate my faculty friends with the next statement), may be equally as important as that course in Modern British Fiction. It’s the exposure to challenges and learning how to meet it, that will shape our young student athletes.

More often than not there will be frustrations and disappointments and great triumphs as well. I am reminded of a prayer I once read:

I  Asked For—–

I asked for strength and God gave me difficulties to make me strong

I asked for wisdom and God gave me problems to solve

I asked for prosperity and God gave me brawn and brain to work

I asked for courage and God gave me dangers to overcome

I asked for love and God gave me troubled people to help

I asked for favors and God gave me oppotunites

I received nothing I wanted

I received everything I needed!

All my prayers have been answered

On January 22 our team returned to the campus. The 2018 season has begun with strength and conditioning drills, soon to morph into spring practice. The new class has been signed with Mary Gould, Alix Talkow, Molly Mc Andrew, Maddie Mayuga, and  Holly Abbot. They will begin their four year adventure in August. (We expect perhaps one more signing this spring).  These new students will have the additional challenge of adjusting to new teammates, and the next step up in skill and speed.

Even before the first weight is lifted, Theresa Delahanty and Rachel Bird attended the US Naval Academy leadership course ( See the picture at the head of the article with soccer player Joe DeStefano and Deputy Director of Athletics Katy McKittrick and now senior student mentor Ellen Colbourne) . Hopefully, they will bring new leadership skills to inspire the Field Hockey Leopards to success this fall. As I said in previous posts, I have seen the schedule and there is not one team, that is beyond our reach next season. For the seniors, it all comes together, for the juniors they become an important part in the growth of the team, the sophomores, now have been around for a year and have played teams at the highest level, and the freshmen will learn to be integrated into a winning culture.

Hopefully, all our prayers will be answered

 

The page has turned onto a new year and for Lafayette Field Hockey, it’s 2018 that every player and recruit is now focused on. Improvement does not come with just hope, but with work that begins today…. or began yesterday. Our first year players now have one year under their belt, and the second and third year players have honed skills that need to be integrated into a new team construct. Two thousand seventeen is over, and there must be lessons learned and absorbed to apply to the coming season.

There should not be an obsession with lost games, but there should be reflection on what could have been done to change the outcome. There was progress made. There were more shots taken, more goals scored,  and more corners earned last year. In the end, Field Hockey is a chaotic game but winning teams are able to rationalize the chaos through skill development, fitness, and mental preparation. In some cases we rose to the occasion, the Bucknell game comes to mind, and in fairness. there were several games we did not play our best.

I have seen our schedule for next year. There is not a team on that schedule we cannot beat. Yes, the chances of going undefeated are slim, but we should arrive on the field with the mental and physical preparation that will propel us to the playoffs. Every practice, conditioning session, and game review should have an expectation that Lafayette can prevail. Spring is a great time to experiment and prepare, the fall is the time to execute. (Spoiler alert….There will also be a chance to test our skills in late spring and early Summer against foreign competition!!!)

Hope….in a new era and with new leadership in our athletic department, there should be a feeling of optimistic expectations.  The Leopards must arrive on the turf with confidence. Practice with every minute assuming it is as precious, as it is important. Practice should be like a mini-game….. win in practice, and win when in counts. In my conversations with the new AD I have stated that this team, of all the 23 teams at Lafayette, this team is the closest to winning a conference title.

I have hope, with an optimistic state of mind!! I hope we will make the extra pass, the follow up shots, and scrape the turf to make that tackle. I hope I will be able to say that our bench was engaged, standing on the sidelines ready to enter the game if needed. I want to beat Lehigh on our own turf. Three years of losing to Holy Cross must end!! It would be sweet to be on the winning side against American and Boston. Colgate was too close last year. While watching the National Football Championships last night, I wondered if freshmen Tua Tagovailoa knew he would be playing that second half in place of Jalen Hurts. Maybe it doesn’t matter. He was ready, and Hurts was on the sideline rooting his teammates on, as if he were still on the field. That’s how championships are  created.

Hope and expectation can merge. I can’t wait to see our spring games to see if we have the inner strength and skill to match our physical assets.

GO PARDS!!

 

 

 

 

It’s December 30th and cold north winds are slowly changing the northeast landscape into a tableau of white and grey. But the winds of change are arriving more quickly than many of us had expected at Lafayette. The first public manifestation of  change will be the arrival of Sherryta Freeman as the new athletic director. As many of us, who have been part of, or even led a changing leadership environment know, the first days and weeks will set a tone for the coming months and years of operation.

Academic bureaucracy is notorious for slow walking change, and by any historical  measure the pace of developments at Lafayette has recently occurred at warp speed. There is an internal slow  inertia in the academe, perhaps a result of its structure of faculty tenure, and slow board of trustee turnover. It may mean resistance to change of any sort. Lafayette was last to adopt athletic scholarships and resistant  in many areas aside from athletics. Even in the evolving marketplace of higher education teaching professors can be slow to adapt to new methods and tools. Tradition and fleeting success can be a defense against frozen policies, but at some point like the winter winds changing the landscape, sticking to “summer” strategies can endanger the institution.

Let’s review. One year ago a study was commissioned to examine the athletic department. The results of that study have yet to be released. but I would submit its findings are already reshaping the perspective of management. We completed a search and hired a new AD in record speed for our college. There are still 21 openings for new AD’s nationwide and we are out front with an excellent new hire.

But this is a new managerial era for our school, brought on by the hire of Alison Byerly. In her four years, we have set a new strategy, to grow the school, increase the endowment, and build a new science center among other initiatives. These are all bold efforts, which will no doubt have its small hiccups and larger risks. But even as we experience risks it  will be an opportunity to learn and grow. No doubt, tenured faculty, long time entrenched board members, and even alumni will have fear of  change. Management will have to be alert to the demands that change will bring and alter  personnel and processes to support a new operating environment. It will also require an openness so that people will have the opportunity to debate and understand….and yes even contribute ideas that might avoid crippling risk. It will sharpen skills of management, but require an openness not typical of the academe. It will expose those people who would not be supportive of new initiatives.

Athletics, more than any other activity of the school can offer a very visible look at changes in process and strategies. It can be an important and positive view for the outside world to see or it can be a dark negative. My sense of developments of the past year, is that it is a sign of the dusting off of intransigence, and realization that movement is necessary.  I am sure many of my older friends on the board, or faculty who have faithfully been at the school for many years are uncomfortable with this development. It will require an open mindedness that may not be possible for some. Some may even have to move on.

Even students will have to embrace those changes. They will have to put down their cell phones and turn off their computers locked into social media long enough to engage, support and yes, even politely debate those who have different interests and views than their own. In the end, Lafayette is still a community, perhaps slightly larger, more diverse than before, but a community that embraces the totality of itself, where learning occurs in every activity, be it on the field, in the classroom, or even on the stage. It would be nice to see faculty at games at Metzgar and coaches at plays and lectures!!

Ms. Freeman brings an opportunity to embrace and support that change. One of her initiatives at Penn was to encourage all athletic teams to support one another. She developed a system where teams earned points to attend others team’s games, for GPA, for charity work, and yes for their won/ loss record. Maybe that will be a first initiative for the new AD.

I expect in meetings with the new AD, that coaches will begin to see an accounting for what happens on the field, or on the court, not just  how close they are to their budget numbers. Many would like to see the AD report to the president, but if rumors are correct she will at least meet with the president once a week, a recognition of the importance of the enterprise to the institution.

Success breeds its own success and to our student athletes it’s an exciting time. Embrace it, support it, demand the change that is needed. There is no room for whining by coaches, athletes, parents, faculty, alumni or administrators. Open minds and open dialogue are more needed right now. Closed minds and resisting dialogue are not what is required at this point.

Go Pards!!!

The search is over and the Freeman era begins for Lafayette’s new athletic director. Sherryta Freeman, Senior Associate Athletic Director at the University of Pennsylvania accepted an offer to become the next Athletic Director for the Leopards. She had Penn’s major high profile sports reporting to her, Football and Basketball, along with other duties. She arrived at Penn from city rival Temple after a stint at the Ivy League headquarters and a successful administrative and  athletic career at Dartmouth where she also earned her degree in Environmental Studies with a minor in African and African American Studies.

She earned two championship rings while a member of the Dartmouth basketball team and appeared in the NCAA tournament as a result. She was a star basketball player at Hillside High School in New Jersey scoring 2056 points, the most by any female player. She was the captain of the Dartmouth squad and her coaches looked to her to “spark the team defensively  and to get us to the other end,” she is quoted as saying

Lafayette is certainly looking forward to getting its athletic program to the other side of the Presidents Cup.  Being an athletic director was in her DNA. ” As an athletic director your goal is to make a strong and successful department. As a former athlete, you know how important it is to be part of something like that, ” she was quoted as saying 9 years ago.

I had the privilege to meet her and in two words I would describe my initial impression as charismatic and articulate. She has the ability to light up the room with her intelligence and enthusiasm.  She sees winning as critically important to giving our student athletes a good experience and intends on instilling a winning culture in a department that has had a paucity of wins for the last several years. I am sure we will see the desire to turn that around in her first press conference this January.

The Penn football coach has her as the “closer” for top recruits. Dr. M.Grace Calhoun  Penn’s Director of Intercollegiate Athletics and Recreation said , ” Lafayette has make an outstanding hire in choosing Sherryta Freeman  to lead its athletic department. Her dedication to serving our student athletes and coaches has made her extremely valuable to our Division one programs. I am confident that the experience she has gained as Penn Athletics senior administrator has prepared her to successfully lead Lafayette’s athletic department. She will be sorely missed at Penn but I am elated for her and Lafayette.”

I look forward to her arrival in February and I am looking forward to see what her first actions will be.

Welcome Sherryta and GO PARDS!!

 

As I write this article,  Lafayette College is in the midst of a search for a new athletic director. Bruce McCutcheon, the current AD is retiring and all indications are the new AD will be in place by the beginning of the new year. Dr. McCutcheon has seen an evolution in sports not only at Lafayette and the Patriot League, but in college sports programs in general. The effects of Title IX, needs for improved facilities, and the advent of merit aid in the Patriot League has had the effect of altering the landscape for Lafayette  and colleges similar to it.

By all measures, the facility issue has been gradually addressed. Lafayette has met those challenges with field, locker room and infrastructure improvements through the generous support of an active engaged alumni donor base. That improvement has been broad based, respecting every sport and it’s participants. Not only have we seen upgrades in the “major” sports, but virtually every sport has seen the impact of capital improvements over the last decade.

The last 20 years have seen major improvements in women’s sports facilities, not only because of the requirements of Title IX,  but because it was the right thing to do. I graduated in 1967,  women did not arrive until 1972, and progress in that area was slow and grudging. However, by the turn of the last decade, due to administrative attention, women’s sports have received equal attention.

The evolution of the school to merit athletic aid has not been as smooth. As the league adopted merit aid, Lafayette was not only slow, but the debate caused harm to the experience of student athletes during the era. One could not expect Lafayette student athletes to compete in a scholarship league without the ability to offer excellent student athletes the same opportunity as other schools in our peer group. We were the last to adopt athletic scholarships in the Patriot League.

The debate was bitter, and it still has its internal wounds on the psyche and culture of the school. However, even the most diehard opponents have come to see that our present student athletes represent the best of us. As a group, their GPA is higher, and as alumni they are stronger givers as they succeed in life. Student athletes are more in demand in the job market, and as a group they receive higher starting salaries than other students with the same GPA. By every measure, they are good citizens, and strong representatives of Lafayette to the outside world.

However, there is a missing piece. It cannot be said that we have a complete program without success on the field. Yes, we have had Patriot League Football Championships ( the great win over Lehigh in Yankee Stadium was a highlight even though it wasn’t a championship year), NCAA appearances in Men’s Basketball, two back to back League Championships, NCAA appearances and  national rankings by the Field Hockey Team, but in the last five years a winning record in any of our sports has been a rare occurrence.

Somehow, the mention of winning has not appeared in the goals and mission of the athletic department. Our student athletes are entitled to that goal, and consistent failure to reach those winning goals can impact everything that follows, fundraising, school spirit and yes, even recruitment for non athletes.

We have met challenges in the other successful elements of our sports enterprise. We must now fearlessly make winning a clear objective, not winning at any price, but by also upholding our standards and culture. There are those who may say we cannot accommodate winning and our character. To those, I would point to the schools with the most NCAA championships…Stanford and Princeton. Not that shabby I would submit.

We are in the right league that has the right values, and it is in our best  interest to find a way to succeed. This week we will be interviewing the final candidates for AD, I want to hear him/her  say FEARLESSLY, that winning will become part of the mission statement and there will be plan to get us there. The new AD should not do it to impress a boss, or make other college employees happy, but to support our student athletes in meeting their goals and give them an experience worthy of their effort and abilities.

The last interviews are this week. I look forward to the outcome. Outside of President this is the most important appointment the college can make!!

GO PARDS

Here we are,the week of the most played football series in college history. It will be the 153rd game to be played, and one can imagine the events that have been witnessed over this long and bitter rivalry. The schools are only 15 miles apart, which makes the rivalry that more intense at every level. It really doesn’t matter what sport or contest is involved, the intensity rises when its  Lafayette vs Lehigh on the field or court. This year, and for the last several years there is a constructive rivalry as to who can get the most donors  during the week. This year the athletic department has a goal of 1,530 gifts of any size during the week preceding the game. ( Gifts can be made electronically via the college website or through the usual social media venues). Any gift counts ( of course I favor  field hockey gifts). Gifts can be designated for any activity at the college

The rivalry has brought all kinds noted happenings. Here’s a list of some from games past:

A cow greeted a President in his office in 1909

Caskets were paraded at halftime

A wrong way run still turned into a touchdown after 115 yards of broken tackles ,straight arms and elusive cutbacks.

Play signals were stolen, so a Lafayette coach invented the huddle

In 1886 Lehigh walked off the field to protest bad officiating ( The Lafayette manager was the official) They might have had a point as the “referee” lost count of the downs and awarded Lafayette 5 and 6 downs on occasion. He also allowed a touchdown as he went to the sidelines to consult with the coaches, while Lafayette picked up the ball and ran for an “allowed,” touchdown!!

In 1889 the Lehigh players got poison Ivy, in 1890 the Lafayette field was struck by lightning.

In 1962 Lafayette’s freshman rented a six month old Leopard. ( they originally, unwisely wanted to rent a full grown 300 pound leopard which was nixed by an alert  administration).

In 1968 a bunch of Lehigh marauders, disappointed by the cancellation of the pre game bonfire and pajama parade, raided the Lafayette campus and up rooted the goalposts ( they were wooden at the time). The goalposts were reassembled in the form of an “LU” at midfield.

Before the 100th game Lafayette freshmen raided South Mountain the night before. They painted one letter on each of the steps leading to the library and University Center spelling L-A-F-A-Y-E-T-T-E.

As you can imagine there are many more tales surrounding this rivalry, but I’ll save some of the juicer ones for next year. IN ANY CASE BRING THE ROAR WITH YOUR GIFT OF ANY SIZE …beat the Lehighs.