U.S. OLYMPIC FESTIVAL : FIELD OF DREAMS : Future Appears Bright for U.S. Field Hockey Thanks in Part to Successful Valley-Area Programs

America’s new wave of sports heroes are being trained in our local schools.

They are young, organized and armed.

They carry sticks. Field hockey sticks.

Dare we question the validity of their movement?

After all, a little more than a decade ago there were those who thought AYSO were the call letters for a new-wave radio station.

“I’d say we’re in the same position AYSO was about 15 years ago,” said Matt Robbins, a member of the U. S. national field hockey squad. “When I first started playing soccer, no one really knew about it. Now, in four years, we’re going to have the World Cup in L. A.”

If field hockey spreads in a similar fashion, it will do so from a base in the Conejo and Simi valleys. Or so it would seem.

Of the 60 players invited to participate at the U. S. Olympic Festival this week at Cameron University, 24 are from Simi Valley, Moorpark, Thousand Oaks, Newbury Park, Camarillo or Westlake Village.

This did not happen by coincidence.

About eight years ago, a man named Tom Harris made a tour of the elementary and junior high schools at Ventura County’s east end.

He brought along recruiting posters and enough players to give a short exhibition at each stop.

Give me your small, your weak and your bored--as long as they can run a little, he seemed to say.

And they came. Not in droves, but in trickles.

The sport’s fast pace gave it a certain appeal for those with youth and an open mind.

Harris took the most dedicated and the best players--usually they were one and the same--and formed club teams. The best club players formed all-star teams and the best of the all-stars made national squads.

Mohammad Barakat and Alvin Pagan of Simi Valley joined the sport’s youth movement on the ground floor and advanced quickly.

Barakat, 22, was unwillingly introduced to the sport at the age of 12. He had seen an exhibition at school, but came away unimpressed.

When it was time for recess, soccer and basketball were his games.

But when he grabbed a ball and got ready to play, no one else came around.

“All my friends went and played field hockey,” Barakat said. “I figured since I couldn’t beat them, I might as well join them.”

Five years later he was playing in the Olympics, an experience he says was “the highlight of my lifetime.”

Pagan, 22, took up the sport at the around same time and was invited to the Olympic Festival that first year.

“The sport itself hooked me, and the fact that I could improve so fast,” Pagan said.

Travel opportunities are certainly a positive factor.

Larry Amar, 17, from Camarillo, started playing field hockey four years ago. Next month, he will be going to Malaysia as a member of the U. S. junior national squad.

In the past three months, he has been to Europe twice to play field hockey, something that he says is not lost on his friends.

“Through my travels and leaving school, a lot of my friends who had never heard of field hockey have noticed it now,” Amar said.

Internationally, field hockey’s top teams are from Europe, followed by squads from Argentina, Canada, the Soviet Union and the United States.

“In Europe, it’s a national sport,” Pagan said. “Basketball and baseball aren’t as popular, so they get the players who are tall, bulky and versatile, whereas we still have athletes who maybe can’t make it in other sports.”

Barakat sees that situation changing, however.

“We are seeing more young, talented hockey players with more skill than ever before,” he said. “There is an undying optimism. When we go overseas we are inspired by our good play. We believe we’re on our way to seeing the kind of international results we are looking for.

“It’s just going to take some time.”

That time may be coming soon. The average age for men’s players at the Olympic Festival is 18, and Mike Lee of Simi Valley is the oldest at 24.

Players from the Valley area have an advantage in terms of development because the interest already exists here.

“If I lived somewhere else it would be hard to get motivated to train and their wouldn’t be a game tempo to train against,” Amar said. “But back home, against people who want to train hard and play at the top level, you’re definitely going to improve your skills.”

A recently formed program called “MINKEY”--the first three letters from “miniature” and the last three from “hockey”--is expected to have a positive impact on field hockey’s development.

MINKEY involves more than 3,000 Valley-area children, providing them with field hockey instruction and equipment.

“We go from school to school and the kids come out for 30 minutes at a time and we go all day,” Robbins said. “It is the only program of it’s kind in the U. S. right now.”

MINKEY has its origins in Australia, which has one of the world’s top teams.

“It’s all related to the junior programs they have there, too,” Robbins said. “And now Southern California has the same thing.”

A greater awareness of the need for additional U. S. training facilities for all amateur sports also has aided the field hockey movement.

Amar, one of the nation’s most promising juniors, has already benefitted from a six-month residence camp at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo.

“When you play hockey twice a day, every day, for about six months, you have no choice but to improve,” Amar said of the experience.

All of which leaves U. S. field hockey enthusiasts all the more confident about the country’s future in the sport.

And players from the Conejo and Simi Valley areas are leading the way.

“It’s no fluke that so many of us are from that one area,” Robbins said. “It’s all by design. Some day soon we’re going to provide the U. S. with some of the best hockey players in the world.”