USA Field Hockey attempting to expand talent pool | One Stop News ...

The West Coast was within reach. So was most of the Midwest. The East Coast? No way. Player after player pointed to a map that flashed on a projection screen hanging from the ceiling, needing to stand on their toes and stretch their sticks to identify their hometowns. About 300 students at Steele Elementary School burst into laughter Wednesday during a visit by the U.S. women?s field hockey team, but a lingering problem was exposed for the Americans, who continue to attract top-level talent only from the Eastern time zone. Of the 16 players scheduled to compete next month at the Pan American Games, the first Olympic qualifier in Guadalajara, Mexico, eight hail from Pennsylvania; three apiece are from New Jersey and Virginia; and one apiece is from New York and North Carolina. It?s a result of a lack of grassroots programs across the nation, like the one expected to start at Steele in the spring, in which kids will learn the basics of dribbling, passing and shooting. Most of the 20,000 members of Colorado Springs-based USA Field Hockey call home in the Northeast or in the Bay Area, according to Steve Locke, the executive director of the national governing body. For membership to touch more states, Locke must knock down the notion that field hockey is an ?elitist sport,? he said. ?This is actually one of the most economical sports,? he added. ?The cost of equipment is limited. Fields are everywhere.? USA Field Hockey often loses developing players to the most popular high school sports for girls ? track and field, basketball, volleyball, softball and soccer. Plus, ?a lot of these players don?t start playing until they?re in high school, and that?s a real issue because of not learning stick skills and all the other skills,? Locke said. ?It?s like many other sports ? if you don?t learn the technical aspects, you?re really limited in what you can do.? The 13th-ranked Americans, needing a victory in Guadalajara to make the 2012 London Games or a top-four finish to advance to the second Olympic qualifier that?s next year in Belgium, India or Japan, haven?t hit the Olympic podium since they won a bronze medal in 1984 in Los Angeles. They?ve had four straight runner-up finishes at the Pan American Games, each time placing behind top-ranked Argentina, a 2008 Olympic bronze medalist. How can the U.S. get over the hump? ?If we can tap into that (younger) population and have growth in our sport, it?s going to make things a lot better for us on the international scene,? U.S. coach Lee Bodimeade said. ?The earlier you can get them in, the better.? Olympian Lauren Crandall began field hockey as an eighth-grader, and her mission is to ?try to share our love of the sport with younger kids, so that we can get them introduced to field hockey and put a stick in their hands and get them playing around. Have it be one of the sports that you start playing when you?re young. ? It?s similar to soccer. It?s not walking around with a stick. It?s very fast-paced. It?s high intensity. It?s a lot of action.? Also an Olympian, Rachel Dawson gave up basketball for field hockey, then she realized that field hockey players ?typically tend to be saturated in certain areas and nonexistent in other areas,? she said. So everywhere she goes, she tells prospective players, ?This is our sport. Try it out. It has taken us to amazing places. It could be something for you, too.? For more Olympic coverage, visit www.gazette.com/olympics?
msnbc.com: The Gazette

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