County Grows Olympic Crop in Field Hockey

Ventura County is known as fertile ground for a lot of fine things--strawberries, lemons and avocados come to mind--but who would have thought the region would produce so many world-class men’s field hockey players?

Six of 16 starting team members representing the United States at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta are from the county, and the team captain, Larry Amar, is a Camarillo native. Another four Ventura County players are alternates.

“I really don’t know why Ventura County is a hotbed [for field hockey],” said Steve Overton, 40, of Newbury Park. “Probably because this facility is so close.”

Overton is among the scores of men who show up twice a week to practice their field hockey moves on an artificial turf playing field next to the Moorpark College football stadium.

The 2-year-old field, run by the Thousand Oaks-based Field Hockey Federation, is a labor of love, hand-built by players and other enthusiasts of the sport.

It’s also the site of the annual California Cup tournament, a clash among teams from across the nation and the world held each Memorial Day weekend. Ninety-three teams--including men, women and children--competed in this year’s tournament, which is likened to the World Cup of American field hockey competition.

Pally Dhillon, an organizer and coach for the federation, thinks he knows why the county has become an emerging powerhouse in the sport.

“It’s the climate,” Dhillon said, seated on a brick border laid by Mike Newton, a Ventura resident who played on the U.S. men’s field hockey team during the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. “Here we can play outdoors for 12 months out of the year, whereas back East, they’re inside for most of the winter.”

While Easterners are shut indoors during the snowy season, many of them watch and play ice hockey, a game markedly different from field hockey.

Whereas ice hockey players swoosh around on skates chasing around a flat rubber disc, field hockey players run around on a wet turf field in pursuit of a hard white plastic ball.

Field hockey uses rules and positions similar to soccer, with 11 players on the field at any given time, including forwards, halfbacks, fullbacks and a well-protected goalie.

Unlike the ice-bound sport where players revel in bashing each other, field hockey is also a markedly noncontact sport.

“It’s finesse, rather than brute force,” Dhillon said.

One aspect of the game that has allowed it to grow in 20 years from a handful of people competing at parks and schools to more than 500 players and four clubs in Ventura County is that almost anyone, short or tall, large or small, has some sort of advantage.

“Size really doesn’t matter that much,” said Vick Bhumber, 19, of Simi Valley, who stands about 5 feet, 6 inches tall, and weighs about 130 pounds. “The No. 1 world contender, Shabaz Ahmid Jr., is small like me.”

Age doesn’t seem to matter all that much either.

“I’m 52, and I still play,” Dhillon said.

Although field hockey, which dates back to Egyptian times, has been an Olympic sport since 1908 and ranks second to soccer in worldwide popularity, the game in this country was played primarily by women at schools on the East Coast and did not generate much attention from American men until fairly recently.

Dhillon and other federation members credit one person, Tom Harris of Thousand Oaks, with bringing the game to the region. Two decades ago, Harris watched the game being played in an Olympic highlight show and responded to a friend’s dare that Americans could not master the sport.

Since then he has built the largest field hockey league in Southern California and one of the strongest men’s programs nationwide. This week, he’s in Atlanta, watching the federation’s best players compete against opponents worldwide. The team lost to Argentina on Monday and had a bye on Tuesday.

Among the Ventura County residents starting on the U.S. field hockey team are Amar, Ben Maruquin of Ventura, John O’Neill of Newbury Park, Scott Williams of Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley residents Nick Butcher and Tom Vano.

The team alternates are Shawn Hindy of Westlake Village, Jeff Horrocks of Newbury Park, Brian Schledorn of Thousand Oaks and Alex Stewart of Simi Valley.

Don’t expect to see them on TV: Olympic field hockey competition has not been televised and has been receiving little attention from the news media. Local hockey players are scrambling to get any news from the game in Atlanta.

“I haven’t seen any statistics anywhere,” said J. Lauren Boyce, president of the Camarillo Cougars field hockey club. “We’re getting the scores off the Internet.”