One of the greatest pleasures I have is spending an afternoon watching my nieces play field hockey. One of them is in high school and the other in middle school, both schools that I also attended. I played field hockey in middle school but turned all my attention to my swimming after that. I was a pretty good player but I loved the camraderie of my team and friends more than anything.
What strikes me now, so many years after I played on the forward line, is how many more opportunities there are for these young women to pursue their athletic careers in college. When I graduated from high school, there were no athletic scholarships available for girls. A fellow member of my swim team was an All-American in her events and a state champion but no college recruiters came calling for her to attend their schools. She was an excellent student and received a small academic scholarship to a local college but it always felt like she should be getting more.
Less than 10 years later, the landscape had dramatically changed. Now I watched as my young cousin, an outstanding swimmer, received a full 4-year scholarship to an NCAA Division I school. She deserved it - getting up at dawn and into the pool as most were drinking their first coffees, undergoing knee surgery and being back in the pool in record time, getting good grades in class and setting records in the water. She joined thousands of graduating high school seniors who would be able to continue their education and enjoy their sports.
Just recently, as I stood with parents and friends on the sidelines watching the varsity high school ladies playing, everything came full circle. My brother - dad of my niece - remarked that one of the players on the opposing team had signed with a Division I school to play on a scholarship, and several others were being recruited. My niece has her eyes on an Ivy League school to play lacrosse or field hockey (or both) and we discussed what she'd have to do for her grades to get there because there are no athletic scholarships and oh, by the way, her high school lacrosse coach is back there watching and he's quite impressed with her play. One of her teammates, also an outstanding hockey and soccer player, and high jumper, is collecting her information for college with an eye to scholarships as well.
Wow. What an awesome feeling to watch these young ladies work so hard and have the potential for those kinds of rewards. How far it has come from the days when my middle school field hockey teammates and I wore matching braided headbands and when my high school swim team suit was so baggy that I could have fit another 1/2 of me there! (No full body suits, no lycra there!)
These are definitely Pink Power Slipper moments and I believe I'll have to go find a pair of pink hockey spikes. Size 9, please.
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