Field hockey is a funny game

Field hockey is a funny game.

While trying to hit the round, white, dense ball into the back of the opposing team’s cage, the players, in their black skirts and massive shin guards covering half their legs, bend over at the waist and reach down with their curved sticks to whack the ball forward to an open teammate.

If a person has never seen the game before, like I hadn’t, they would start to question the reason for the sport.

That is to say, why not just make the sticks longer so the drama of scoring a winning goal wouldn’t also be met with back pain the next morning when a player’s feet hit the ground after waking up from a night’s sleep the morning after a game.

Or what exactly do wearing skirts for the female players, as opposed to shorts, do as far as an athletic advantage?

While it is a strange game, I found field hockey at a very poignant time in my life. As a sophomore journalism major trying to figure out how spots reporting really works, I was moved to the field hockey beat and assigned to cover all of the games.

Let me just say that this was no easy task.

I had been covering cross country, where the athletes start, finish and move on with their day after the race.

Not so in field hockey.

In fact, I had never even seen a field hockey game before. And after watching more than a few, I still don’t understand a few rules, and I’m not the only one. All this was happening while I was newly single.

And my meal plan was screwed up. My dorm room’s heat didn’t work.

My roommate moved out. I felt entirely alone and lost.

Grrrrreat.

So aside from being hungry, cold, alone and sad a lot of days that fall, I was also tasked with covering a sport I had no idea about. Things could have been worse, I suppose.

Then something strange happened.

I found out that this game is equal parts intense, brutal and methodical. I fell in love with the coach’s Trinidadian accent. I loved the way the girls played for the team, and not for themselves.

The crowd was sparse, but those who did show up were extremely passionate. I made a few key contacts on the team who made writing stories a helluva lot easier and quicker. I started to love it.

Aside from the constant emails and texts I would have to send to players to get reactions after games, I could tell they thought of me as more than just a reporter, I think.

I stayed professional, but having a nice conversation with one of the players was refreshing. And best of all, they enjoyed the constant exposure in the school’s newspaper that I was always giving them. This was my job, but it means that much more when the subjects truly appreciate your hard work.

And things got better that semester. I learned how to be OK with being alone. I ate better.

Sadly, my heat never really kicked on, despite the my repeated complaints (I learned to type with gloves on).

But in all, everything started to work itself out.

When taking advice, it seems friends and family are always quick to reassure that “everything will work itself out,” and the person receiving the advice never really wants to accept that. But here, it was true. Things got better.

And to this day, I give a lot of that credit to the field hockey team.

I was in a miserable rut, but being forced to get out of my comfort zone and go cover a sport I had no idea about made me not only a better writer, but really helped my outlook on life.

I met some really great people. Two years later as a senior, I was able to work and enjoy more field hockey games as an athletics department student assistant. I won’t go as far to say that field hockey saved my life, but I will say that its effect on me was profound.

It’s funny how things work out like that.