LINDA KREISER: AN INTELLECTUAL APPROACH

By Al Mattei

Founder, TopOfTheCircle.com

Linda Krieser is a seminal figure in field hockey coaching circles; she is not only one of the few players with U.S. national team experience coaching in the scholastic ranks, she is one of the only members of the 400-win club who was still playing in 2003.

Krieiser and The Founder sat down in September of 2003 just after she learned that she was being elected to the National Field Hockey Coaches' Association Hall of Fame.

Is there anything Linda Krieser can't do?

She made the made the U.S. national team in the late 1970s out of Millersville University, a scant six years after first picking up a field hockey stick. She also made the U.S. women's lacrosse national team pool a scant four years after first picking up a stick.

And, believe it or not, she found time to play clarinet in the band and play college basketball at Millersville.

As it turns out, she has not one, but two Bachelor's degrees.

She has taken that kind of intellectual approach to the field hockey team at Hummelstown Lower Dauphin (Pa.), not being afraid to teach over and above the innate skills of her team members. When things go right, as they have more often than not since she started coaching the Lower Dauphin junior varsity in 1976, the passing is with laser-guided accuracy, letting the ball do the work into open space for teammates.

The team concept is so strong at Lower Dauphin that when the Lower Dauphin Alumni Association made a display celebrating the sport at the school, they made a sculpture out of field hockey sticks forming the word "TEAM."

Much of the team's style stems from Kreiser's experience on the U.S. national team in the mid-to-late 1970s. She got to play in the 1975 World Cup, where the Stars and Stripes placed 10th.

But unlike the players of today, she didn't have a residency program or a job that would allow her the flexibility to take time off for training or tournaments. Instead, she went back to school.

"I had wanted a research job," Kreiser recalls. "But Richard Nixon cut back on all of the research funds for the companies in our era. I went back and got my Bachelor of Science degree so that I could teach."

She credits her time at Millersville University for her development as an athlete and as a person.

"The college experience was instrumental in my ability to end up playing on the U.S. team. After you played your regular season, the college players would try out for the sectional teams to take you to the National Festival, which used to be the selection pricess to the U.S. team," Kreiser says. "Sandy Peters was our coach, and she retired a couple of years ago. What was neat about her was that she gave us opportunities to understnad the whole process of how to make the U.S. team."

Krieser was encouraged by Peters to take an officer's position as a college junior in order for her to see the inner workings of the American field hockey community.

"That made me appreciate the group of volunteers and people who kept field hockey going," she says. "Through that, it made me want to continue to give back to field hockey after I started teaching and coaching, and encouraging my kids to get involved, too."

Once she got back to teaching middle-school life science and varsity field hockey back at Lower Dauphin, she became one of the very few high-school coaches to teach international technical and tactical concepts to young people. And since then, she has not been afraid of force-feeding higher-level concepts to her team.

"I think of it as the type of play I have learned in club hockey, and what I learned from (U.S. head coach) Vonnie Gros," Kreiser says. "I do try to teach how to be successful on grass, so you won't see us do a reverse hit unless we're playing on turf. I try to do those things that will make us successful; we emphasize a passing game with a lot of movement off the ball."

She also does something that very few other teams do: start emptying the bench when the lead is as little as two goals.

"Everybody on this team is important, and everyone needs time to develop," Kreiser says. "They need to feel like they are part of our team, and feel special. The team aspect of our program has been the trump card of our program. People want to be part of our tradition and our family. If anything, I'd like to be known as a coach that really emphasized that."

Amazingly, Lower Dauphin has reached the pinnacle of Pennsylvania field hockey only twice: in 1993 and 1998.

"I've probably had teams as good as some of the state championships, but, as my mom says when she comes with me to a district or a state game, 'I hope you get some breaks today,'" she says. "For example, in 1993, Unionville takes us to double overtime, and strokes, and up steps Kate Barber, one of the best high-school players in the country, and she hits the post. That day, we got a break. In the 1996 final, we had a goal called back because the official thought it hit somebody, and Emmaus beats us in overtime."

That just goes to show tough the road through the state's District 3 and Class AAA championship tournaments are. Neither tournament seeds the teams based solely on won-loss record, meaning that a meeting of two champions (of a division or a district) could occur in the first round.

"My hat has to go off to teams like Warwick and Emmaus, who continually win the championship, because it's not easy," Kreiser says. "You have to play four great games in the state tournament -- and you may have to play your toughest opponent first."

Kreiser is unique in American field hockey circles in that she is one of the only members of the 400-win coaching club that remains active as a player.

"Because it's such a difficult sport, and you never play that perfect field hockey game," she says, "you want to be able to make that pass and work with teammates to get more goals than your opponent. I still love the challenge of the game."

As a member of the Lancaster Red Rose team, she has numerous appearances at the indoor and outdoor national championship tournaments run by USA Field Hockey.

"I don't even know how much longer I am going to play, but I love it," she says. "Each year, it gets harder because my friends are retiring. I have to get younger and younger players to keep the team going."

She recognizes that there is an age gap developing between herself and her players ("I'm older than some of their moms," she says), but she has kept current as to what young people face.

"When I was young, and I wanted to play softball in Palmyra, there was a big discussion about me going that far from home," Kreiser says. "But kids today are more worldly; they will go to King of Prussia to shop and think nothing of it. They have their cell phones, their Internet, and they are so much more knowledgable about what is going on.

"But kids today have their time totally booked, and I respect that as a coach. I don't even do three-a-day practices anymore because they have all these things going on. Our preseason has gotten shorter because kids are involved in so many other things."

She has seen the growth of girls' and women's soccer in American culture, and has found it much more difficult to recruit soccer players for the field hockey team, even though Lower Dauphin is one of the few remaining schools in Pennsylvania where varsity soccer is played in the spring.

"Fortunately, I am in the middle school, so I get to see them first-hand," she says. "I have to tell them, 'You're young; you can do both.' It's not fair to ask a 10-year-old what sport she wants to play. It does not hurt to play other sports, because it develops other aspects of your body. I thought basketball was great for my footwork and quickness, and for making me stay low on defense."

Krieser also sees the day when field hockey and soccer have to compete with each other for athletes at the school; a club lacrosse program was started in the school in 2002 with an eye towards future varsity competition once PIAA soccer becomes a fall sport.

"There's going to be a place for field hockey," she says. "Initially, there'll be a setback, but a lot of people and parents really enjoy the sport."

The 21st Century has been full or honors for Linda Krieser; she earned her 400th win in 2000, and she was selected to carry the Olympic torch for a short distance on the way to the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.

"One of my goals as a hockey player was to make an Olympic team, and I wasn't able to make the 1980 team," she says. "My parents gave me such a great gift when they filled out all these forms and recommendations that had to be sent into Coca-Cola."

The torch and the white jumpsuit have a prominent place in her basement. So it's hard to know where memorabilia from her induction into the National Field Hockey Coaches' Association Hall of Fame is going.

When she learned that she was going to be inducted in 2004, she thought, "Wow, I've been coaching a long time of someone nominated me." And, as it turns out, the goalkeeper for her 1993 team, Jamie Smith, will be presenting her at the induction ceremony.

"Field hockey has been a passion since I learned the game in 10th grade," Kreiser says. "To be inducted into the National Field Hockey Coaches' Association Hall of Fame is such a special award, because it makes me think about all the wonderful kids I have coached over the years."