OPINION: SPORTSMANSHIP BECOMING QUITE OFFENSIVE

By Al Mattei
Founder, TopOfTheCircle.com

In 1998, The Founder stood next to a sizable recreational turf field at the University of Maryland, chatting with former Team USA coach and National Futures architect Vonnie Gros during the National Futures Tournament. In the midst of a wide-ranging conversation, she cocked her ear and said, "You know what's missing? Listen."

On three fields carved out of the double-wide turf were the sounds of footfalls of various cadences, the occasional smack of mulberry against plastic, and the occasional sound of goalie moonboots squeaking against artificial turf, punctuated with the occasional whistle.

"Nobody's scoring," she said.

Fast forward to 2006, and something amazing has been happening on the domestic field hockey scene: a scoring explosion on the scholastic level.

In 2005, at five teams -- Emmaus (Pa.), Selinsgrove (Pa.), Plumstead New Egypt (N.J.), Stafford (Va.) and Voorhees Eastern (N.J.) had scored 130 goals or more. Ten teams -- ten! -- recorded 15 or more goals in a game. Emmaus, one of those teams, broke the record for goals scored in a season by the end of its league campaign.

It is also notable that, of the top nine team goal-scoring performances of all time, seven of them came in 2002 or later.

Individual scoring, in both goals and assists, has been on an uptick. Two players -- Amie Survilla (2004) and Kelly Fitzpatrick (2005) -- had the first 60-goals seasons since the offside and obstruction rules were abolished on the National Federation level. One player, Breanna Hahn, had 10 goals in a single game in 2006. And the career record for goals in a career could be threatened; junior Chantae Miller crossed the 100-goal threshold in 2006.

Such scoring power is also reflected defensively. A new national record for saves by a goalkeeper was set in 2005 by Krisha Giammarco. She had to make these saves because her team, Bethlehem (Pa.) Catholic, was being shelled in most every contest.

But for all of the goalscoring, there are teams -- not only in American high schools, but colleges and national teams -- which have not been able to keep up.

There has been, thanks to the gulf between the very good and the very poor hockey programs in international, collegiate, and scholastic play, a slew of blowout scores which have occurred in 2002 or later:

Field hockey pundits have expressed various degrees of shock. Time was, a field hockey team would stop attacking the other team's goal when the margin was, at most, five goals.

But this norm of sportsmanship is just one of many which have been, sadly, lacking in The Television Highlight Era and the Internet era of American sport.

Ultimately, how do you account for this raft of shutouts or blowouts of 15 goals or more in a shade under four years in games played in the Americas?

Are the above scores a result of a lack of sportsmanship on the part of coaches?

Look at the contexts of each individual contest. Amongst the international results interspersed above, the winners were obligated to beat even the weakest teams in a particular pool by as many goals as possible in order to avoid losing goal-differential tiebreakers.

Parenthetically, it was the complete inability of the Dominican Republic to field competitive teams in the 2001 Pan America Games (from which the international scores in this list) that led to Greece not participating in field hockey at the 2004 Olympics, breaking the long-standing tradition of the Olympic host having at least one entry in every field of endeavor.

As for American schools and colleges, you are very hard-pressed to find a league or division which chooses its champion or tournament berths on goal differential. Usual social norms of decency and sportsmanship have usually kept scoring margins to anywhere from five to 10 goals, depending on the coach.

When something out-of-the-ordinary happens, winning coaches have gone so far as to write letters of apology to the other team.

Otherwise, you have to assume that the coaches in the aforementioned matches are honorable people, and the players on both teams made an honest effort, lest the integrity of the game itself be challenged.

Is there a lack of competition in field hockey in some places because of the ever-increasing number of players in girls' and women's soccer?

Burned-out soccer players used to be the best friend of a field hockey coach. Now, it is almost turning the other way.

Elite soccer players who used to feel run down because of Olympic Development Program soccer are sticking more with the sport because of the hope and aspiration that the Hamms, Chastains, Foudys, and Scurrys of the world given them. And, needless to say, the explosion of the growth of girls' soccer is attributable to the success of the American women on the world stage.

At the same time, you are seeing some field hockey athletes dropping out of the national-team development picture at the age of 21 or earlier, despite being some of the best at their craft.

Is this happening in some places more than others?

The movement from spring to autumn for soccer in New York, Maryland and parts of New Jersey in the past decade has hurt some field hockey programs, cutting down the available player pool for scholastic teams (which feeds into the U.S. college pool).

It is a trend likely to continue when several Pennsylvania districts and Delaware move soccer to the autumn. But look for the state of Michigan's field hockey fortunes -- and its player pool -- to increase once girls' basketball joins the winter lineup for the first time as early as the 2005-06 academic year.

Is the American field hockey community so tight-knit that imitations of runaway scores can apparently happen just as easily as if highlights appeared every night on ESPN?

It wouldn't surprise me. The Internet allows rumors to spread with unbelievable speed, and, let's face it, kids imitate what adults do.

Ultimately, is the American game reaping the rewards of teaching the arts of finishing and control at such a young level that 14-year-olds are being selected for U-21 national teams?

Now, field hockey is a game where a single intelligent and well-trained player can make a tremendous different in her team's fortunes.

And it used to be the case that Futures program would help a large group of players bring back information and skills to their high-school teams.

But with programs like touring teams as well as the Futures Elite curriculum, players with astonishing skills are being produced.

When two or three such players are clustered on the same team, you get a huge imbalance in skill and ability against weaker teams in a particular conference or league.

Regrettably, sportsmanship norms have, at the same time, gone out the window.

That's where you get blowout scores like these, and that is not good for the game. And it shouldn't take something like proposing a mercy rule to prevent them.