Field Hockey Sticks May Break Her Bones, but PopTarts Won’t
The goalkeeper should have been my first clue. No one dresses like RoboCop without a reason.
“You mean . . . you didn’t bring shin guards?” she asked in that polite but curious tone usually reserved for clueless neophytes like myself.
No, no shin guards. No cleats, either. Just my scrawny bod. That and an overwhelming desire to play field hockey.
OK, I lied. The only overwhelming desire I had at that moment--a cold, rainy Monday morning at Santiago High School--was to zip back home to my robe and bunny slippers, break open a box of PopTarts and tune in to “Hooked On Aerobics.” But the job has its responsibilities.
Anyway, this figured to be a cinch. Play field hockey for a couple hours, learn what it’s like, figure out why a few die-hards refuse to give up on a sport that’s gone the way of the eight-track tape. No problem.
Except one, and she was walking my way.
Kit Snider, Santiago’s longtime coach, Orange County’s field hockey guru, was approaching fast. She had a hockey stick in each hand, a zealous look in her eyes and a purpose.
I was to be converted.
We started with the fundamentals.
First, you never hit, whack or blast the ball. Sure, it might feel as if that’s what you’re doing, but the correct terms are stroke and push . When doing so, you must use the flat side of the stick, which looks something like an oversized candy cane except it’s made of wood, doesn’t taste too good and costs about 60 bucks.
You stop the ball--about the size of a baseball and covered with hard plastic--by trapping it with the stick, angling it in such a way that it forms a wedge with the ground. (It’s a great deal easier to stop it with your feet, but that’s not allowed). You’ve got to be careful to angle the stick just right, or else there’s a good chance the ball will pop up and hit you smack in the face. Trust me on this one.
During a match, you might hear someone shout, “Tackle, tackle!” This doesn’t mean you should shove your opponent’s face into the turf. Instead, it’s a call to steal the ball. Again, this is tougher than it sounds. In field hockey, you are not allowed to make contact, intentionally at least, with another player or her stick, making tackling a rather precise business.
Another thing--never ask field hockey players if they compete in skirts. They do, but the skirts are called kilts . It might look a bit, uh, prissy, but this is no sport for wimps. Field hockey demands endurance, quickness and skill. And unlike soccer, to which it’s most often compared, field hockey requires upper- as well as lower-body strength. Pass the Ben Gay.
Kit was motioning me to her side.
“OK,” she said. “Let’s go.”
Where? Out to breakfast?
Uh-oh. Kit wasn’t kidding. She handed me a pair of shin guards and told me I was on the white team. It was scrimmage time.
My teammates consoled me with a few tips (and let me know I had my shin guards on backward). Just keep your eye on the ball, they said. Always keep your head up. Never look down for more than an instant. They pointed out the scar above team captain Wendy Nguyen’s right eye. I felt a little queasy.
It was then I noticed the big wad of orange gum everyone had in their mouths wasn’t gum at all. Everyone (but me) was wearing a mouth guard. Required equipment, my teammates said. Kind of gross, but it keeps your teeth from getting knocked in. And hey, when the ball is traveling 100-plus m.p.h., well . . .
Wait a sec. 100 m.p.h.? Is Nolan Ryan involved in this thing?
But the game was on. Which is to say players scrambled every which way while I tried to look like I knew what I was doing. It wasn’t easy.
“Hey Barb!” Kit yelled from the other side of the field. “You’re doing fine!”
Sure, if you forget the fact that I dropped my stick a couple times, took a swing at a big white clump of sea gull feathers (it looked like the ball), and tackled a teammate when I should have been tackling the ball. Yeah, I was a natural, an ace.
“Hey, give it a week,” one of the girls said, smiling. “You’ll be a pro.”
Either that, or back to my PopTarts.
