The Virginia field hockey roster is not a tremendously diverse group. All but four players hail from Virginia and Pennsylvania, and two of those four expand the geographical spectrum only as far as Ohio and Massachusetts. Junior Inge Kaars Sijpesteijn out of Wassenaar in the Netherlands, however, makes the field hockey roster unique.
Sijpesteijn's Dutch origins are not the result of random chance. The Netherlands women's national team, after being crowned the champion at the 2006 World Cup, is currently ranked No. 1 in the world according to the International Hockey Federation. Naturally, the Netherlands is a breeding ground for collegiate field hockey players.
Why is the Netherlands, along with countries such as Australia, Germany and Argentina, so far ahead of the United States in field hockey? Virginia associate head coach Chris Spice, formerly an assistant for the Australian women's national team and later the performance director for Great Britain's men's and women's sides, explained differences in skill stem from creativity in coaching across countries.
"Principally, America has generally lacked the creativity," Spice said. "The big problem I think is that their basic skills and what they get taught is very limited, so we spend a lot of time at this level still talking about technique."
Furthermore, players from these countries tend to start playing field hockey at a much earlier age than their American counterparts. According to Spice, international players first pick up a stick at the age of six or seven, whereas an American player may not learn about field hockey until high school. As a result, the United States is constantly a step behind much of the rest of the world in knowledge and development.
"Because they start so late, they don't have the basics that the other players have earlier on," Spice said. "Generally you can see people that have been developed after 10 or 15 minutes of watching someone's play."
As a result, when international players such as Sijpesteijn arrive on the college scene, not only do they have to acclimate themselves to a different playing environment, but also to a generally less-developed set of players. According to Spice, this adjustment can be very frustrating.
"The interesting thing that they have to come to grips with first obviously is managing their frustration, because they generally can think ahead of the other players," Spice said. "They've got this position where they're ahead of the game, and you have to slow them down and at the same time speed the American girls up."
In addition to these game-speed adjustments, there are also aspects of the American game that differentiate it from international styles of play. In an attempt to make up for any lack in ability, there is a much greater emphasis on physical play and work ethic in the United States than abroad.
"The first game, I was like, 'Is this field hockey?'" Sijpesteijn said. "It's so much more physical. People work harder here; I think that's the biggest difference. When the coach says something, you do it."
In addition to the differences in play in women's field hockey, another difference between the United States and other countries is the lack of men's college-level competition. Men's field hockey is just as popular as women's in most countries where the sport is played. With the pushing and shoving and taking out of players that occurs on the field, the lack of a men's side in the United States cannot be attributed to field hockey generally being a "soft" sport.
"I think people think here that field hockey is a sissy sport or something," Sijpesteijn said. "It's not."
Spice also sees the missing men's side as another setback preventing the United States from keeping up with other countries. While other nations can count on their men's teams to continue to develop in their creativity and knowledge of the game, the United States does not have this source from which to draw.
"A lot of the advances that are made technically in the advanced skills are happening in the men's side of the game," Spice said. "Because there isn't that side of the game here to learn off, then a lot of the developments are slower."
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