OPINION: IT'S UP TO US TO KEEP FIELD HOCKEY RELEVANT

By Al Mattei

Founder, TopOfTheCircle.com

Over the past year of writing on this website, we have not only gotten to see athletic talent on the field, we have also gotten to know many people within the field hockey community.

We have also gotten to know many off the field, and at times, some have made some pretty incredible confessions in my presence.

* There is the age-group national team member who may eventually turn out to be the best this nation has ever produced in this sport who told me, "I truly don't know what I am doing this for. I wonder if it will ever be worth it."

* There is the president of a field hockey club located in a remote part of the United States who commented on the outreach the club has done in recent years: "We have managed to get the sport in some of the school curriculums, but many of us are tired of fighting to get the sport noticed. We have family to support, and field hockey is not the priority it once was."

* There is the national-teamer who has left the national team pool, saying to me, "When they get organized up there (at Colorado Springs), I'll come back."

There is something that needs to be said here: field hockey, despite its long history and heritage amongst American women, is about to go the way of the long-play record and the Latin language. Many have told me that field hockey is "a dying sport."

One reason is the regionalization of the sport. As one coach told me, "You have a big pocket in the East Coast, a little in California, and a parking lot in the middle."

Also, the opportunities for young women to play sports professional in the United States has exploded in the past few years. Golf and tennis, basketball and figure skating are luring young women to those sports with promises of riches.

In contrast, elite field hockey players have to hold down jobs to make ends meet. Katie Kauffman of Team USA works in the paint department of a Home Depot in Pennsylvania. Liz Tchou worked in a Chinese restaurant while training for the Atlanta Olympics.

Mind you, elite soccer players had much the same burden in the early 1990s, even after winning the first World Cup for the M&M's Trophy (how many of you remember when Michelle Akers-Stahl Stole The Ball?).These days, thanks to personal appearances and the fall indoor tour, players will rake in anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000 for their efforts this fall. And this without a professional league.

Field hockey, however, is in a crisis of confidence. It goes beyond the gender, regional, and sexual orientation problems the sport has and cuts to the issue of the sport's very survival in this country.

The powers-that-be in the sport have been doing their best. Changes in international rules have made the game fan-friendly and exciting, and rules governing the color of shoes and goalie pads -- as well as the advent of high-definition television -- will make the game much more available for broadcast.

USA Field Hockey has instituted the EuroSport Player of the Week, which makes a good connection between the federation and youth players. It has also developed the United Airlines Field Hockey League, which brings out the best athletes across age groups for the summer.

What is also important are the sponsors that USA Field Hockey has been lining up. There had been only a couple for the past few years, and the list is now growing: United Airlines, Penn Monto, Longstreth, and Texaco.

Even more interesting, however, is the recent sighting of that red bow-tie logo you can often see in your local package store. Budweiser has become a sponsor of USA Field Hockey, which is a huge, huge coup.

But none of the sponsorships, none of the competitions are worth anything without one key element: people who care enough to go to games.

In short, "It's up to us."

It's up to us to remain loyal followers of field hockey, to go to games, read the papers, and ask sports editors for more coverage of the top teams.

It's up to us to talk up field hockey at home and work, to educate others on what a great game it has been and will be.

It's up to us to offer field hockey as an alternative to some sports which tend to burn out their players at too young an age; some of the best scholastic field hockey players in the 1990s are burned-out soccer players.

It's up to us to reach out to places far and wide which do not have field hockey, but could have great teams if given a chance: central Florida, western Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Tennessee, northern California, West Virginia and Nebraska are ripe for the introduction of field hockey -- especially if they are needed for Title IX balance for their schools' football teams.

It's up to us to reach out to segments of the American populace that have not seized upon field hockey as a chance to pursue an athletic dream. African Americans, Latinos, city-dwellers, and males are horribly underrepresented in this country.

It's up to us to support the game whenever it is played, especially if Test matches are in the offing. When the U-20 national-teamers came to Kean University in Union, N.J., the crowds were incredibly small.

I envision a day when American matches are well-attended -- so much so that they charge admission to raise funds for future development of the game in the United States.

I see a sea of flag-waving, drum-banging, singing US fans -- a la Sam's Army -- cheering on the national team.

But no matter what anyone else does within the FIH, USA Field Hockey, or the sponsors' corporate headquarters, there is one inescapable conclusion:

"It's up to us."

What do you think? Email us at topofthecircle@aol.com, and we'll try to print a random sampling of your opinions, as long as you are willing to give us your name and where you are from.