THE 1990s WERE A CRITICAL TIME FOR AMERICAN FIELD HOCKEY

By Al Mattei

Founder, TopOfTheCircle.com

The 1990s were a time where better and better athletes began taking up the game, and when it took a minimal amount of effort to turn a decent player into an elite one.

Chief among the reasons was the National Futures Program, a program that reached unheard-of popularity in certain parts of the United States. Stories abound about how an open tryout for a single open spot in one of the middle-level programs involved upwards of 80 players.

Some players began taking up the sport year-round and ditched their winter and spring sports.

Others, like Hilary Matson of Marathon (N.Y.) and Lorraine Vizzuso of North Caldwell West Essex (N.J.) ran track in order to hone their speed for the game of field hockey, rather than play other team sports.

The 1990s were a time when some dynasties fell, like when Langhorne Neshaminy (Pa.) had its 14-year streak of Patriot Division titles snapped in 1992. Carle Place (N.Y.) saw a 15-year streak of Suffolk Class "C" championships broken in 1997.

Other dynasties were strengthened, such as the nine straight state championships of Virginia Beach Frank W. Cox (Va.).

But in many cases, the level of competition became much stronger, and parity became prominent in the sport.

Oh, sure, Emmaus (Pa.), and Medford Lakes Shawnee (N.J.) were able to earn the lions' share of their state titles. However, they were not able to win as easily as they did in the 1980s.

There were many record-setting performances in the 1990s. Five times, teams managed to set shutout streaks of more than 20 games. Garden City (N.Y.) had a streak in 1998 and 1999 that reached 32. Emmaus (Pa.) twice broke 20, while Winslow (Maine) had a 22-game shutout streak, and Hoosick Falls Central (N.Y.) had a 20-gamer early in the decade.

There have been some serious win streaks, too. Walpole (Mass.) made a serious run at the National Federation record for the number of consecutive wins, winning 93 games in a row on the way to four straight state championships between 1993 and 1996. The Porkers might have already caught and passed Casady (Okla.) but for a controversial 2-1 loss to Holliston (Mass.) in the 1997 state tournament. Since that game, Walpole has been nothing short of sensational, winning 35 of its next 36 games. That's an overall mark of 128-2, folks.

Other amazing team streaks in the 1990s have included Winslow (Maine)'s 50-game win streak between 1997-99, and North Caldwell West Essex's 69-game unbeaten streak which ended in 1995.

One of the members on that team, Michelle Vizzuso, averaged -- averaged! -- a hat trick per game in the 1994 season.

Goalkeepers had a big decade, too. Elizabeth Johnson of Hoosick Falls Central (N.Y.), Kelly Baril of Peabody Bishop Fenwick (Mass.), Joy Sweeney of Collinsville Canton (Conn.), and Audrey Latsko of Emmaus (Pa.) were able to amass an astonishing number of shutouts over their careers.

And then, there are the coaching victories.

One of the first to reach the 400-win plateau was Madalyn "Bunny" Chiomento of Pitman (N.J.), who reached 410 wins before her 1996 death. She has been followed by numerous coaches who have taken advantage of the fact that states like New Jersey and Pennsylvania allow their teams to play more than 20 games a season.

In 1999, Nancy Williams of West Long Branch Shore Regional (N.J.) won her 500th game. Hot on her heels, however, are Bobbi Schultz of Medford Lakes Shawnee (N.J.), Joan Lewis of Moorestown (N.J.), and Susan Butz-Stavin of Emmaus (Pa.), all of whom have exceeded the 400-win mark.

As the more experienced coaches have been getting better, the coaching sorority got younger. Williams had gotten into head coaching after a stellar college career, and more established college players have gone into scholastic head coaching positions at a young age rather than go into the colleges or running full-time offseason programs.

Look no further than former Trenton State College All-American Jill Cosse, now coaching at North Caldwell West Essex (N.J.). She is probably the fastest-ever coach to get to 50 career victories and, if she stays with it, will shatter all coaching marks. Another young coach with tremendous promise is the former UConn star Amy Wood, who has piloted the Barons of Bethesda-Chevy Chase (Md.) to six straight state championships.

While there have been many positives in field hockey in the 1990s, there could be more to come in the next decade. The number of boys interested in the sport has prompted the National Field Hockey Coaches' Association to adopt a resolution calling on USA Field Hockey to begin a boys' development program.

There is reportedly great interest in the New Jersey Futures Program for such a development: one male was playing in the 1999 New Jersey Futures Tournament at Rutgers University.

Other males have been making names for themselves in scholastic hockey, whether it is at Doylestown Central Bucks West (Pa.), at Haverford (Pa.), or at Ashton Mater Amoris (Md.).

Another male, Steve Jennings of Bethesda Walter Johnson (Md.), was able to live his dream in the 1990s. He not only made the U.S. men's national team afterseveral seasons of club play in Europe and America, but accumulated more caps than anyone in the 1999 Pan American Games player team pool. He is now coaching the women's team at American University.

In the last decade of the American Century, however, American field hockey found itself lost in amongst other sports. Publicity surrounding Olympic gold-medal wins for American women's teams in ice hockey, soccer, softball, gymnastics, and basketball, along with World Cup wins in lacrosse and soccer, and world team championships in golf and tennis, collectively pushed field hockey to the background.

Field hockey was so lowly regarded in the 1990s that in a 1991 survey of popular sporting events, field hockey ranked in the lowest 10 of the roughly 120 sports listed. Field hockey was listed below tractor pulling, cricket, the modern pentathlon, and the made-for-television American Gladiators.

To its credit, USA Field Hockey has reacted in the last year with more corporate sponsorships, a World Wide Web presence, and more chances to showcase the game at its elite level with a summer league sponsored by a major airline.

There is more to come when it comes to the showcasing of field hockey in the United States in this era of the globalization of sport, multinational sports broadcasting entities, and the diversity of interest.