Field Hockey!!!!!

            Field Hockey is a very popular sport overseas for males and females. In the United States however, Field Hockey is predominately a female sport with few males participating in it here. Some people here have barely heard of the sport. Sometimes when I tell people that I used to play field hockey they would respond with, “Field Hockey? What’s that?” So I would have to explain that it is a game where you can use either a composite stick made of carbon, fibroglass, or other materials, or a wood stick, and you play on a football field and you hit a bright orange ball to your teammates on the field in order to make it into your opponent’s goal. There are 11 players on each team on the field at once in the high school and outdoor travel level, including a goalie. For indoor field hockey you play on wood floors with 5 girls on each team with a thinner stick and the game is played at a much faster rate. I have played indoor and outdoor at the middle school, high school, and travel level. Field Hockey was my main sport and it is very strange that I am still not doing it. I miss it a ton so I might possibly try out for the club team next semester and see how that goes, but that also means that I will have to get in shape this summer which could be quite difficult. Field Hockey was popular in my county and is becoming more popular across the country, but it is still nowhere near as popular as it is in European countries. No one knows exactly when or where the sport was invented but there are thought to have been drawings of men in the Beni-Hasen tomb in Egypt that are playing a sport that portrays field hockey (Castellone and Dimauro). It is very popular for men to play in Europe and also quite popular for women. I went to a camp with my high school team two summers ago where we had international players as coaches, with one coach from Ireland and the other from Spain and they were amazing. It was definitely very cool to have them coaching us and giving us tips since they are on their national teams. Since a woman, Constance Applebee, started Field Hockey in the United States in the early 1901, it is a female sport here. (Castellone and Dimauro). So this sport is not an old old sport but it is mildly new. Field Hockey was my life in high school and is definitely one of the things I miss about high school and living at home.

http://www.uri.edu/personal/tcas8605/

Intro to me

Hey! My name is Samantha Harman and I am from Fredericksburg, Virginia. I have pretty much lived in Virginia my whole life except from ages 0-4 where I was born and lived overseas on the Azore Islands. They are kind of off the coast of Portugal in the middle of the Atlantic. Due to this I had dual citizenship in Portugal and the U.S. until I was 18, which is kind of a fun fact that I sometimes tell people. In High school I participated in Track and Field but Field Hockey was my main sport. I’ve played Field Hockey for around 6 years at the middle school and high school level and also the club level. I was captain my junior and senior year of my high school team where we ended up being one game away from going to states. The Free Lance Star, which is the local newspaper in my area, interviewed me after we beat one of our rivals for the first time in school history and asked me how exactly we got this done and I stated, "We worked hard in practice everyday and most of our season has been built up preparing for this game, so today we were ready and focused and got the job done." (Quoted by me in The Free Lance Star) I also participated in the concert band in middle school and high school where I played the trombone. In high school I was also engaged in Class Office where I was secretary freshman through junior year and president senior year. Through that I got to plan prom my junior year, homecoming senior year, a pep rally senior year, graduation senior year, and a few other events. I am thinking about running for class office 2015 at Virginia Tech because I love doing all of that planning stuff. I am definitely not being President though because senior year I had to make a speech at graduation and it wasn’t completely terrifying like I thought it would be, but I would rather not speak in front of ten times as many people at Tech’s graduation. I am really hoping to get elected for the position that I run for though so vote for me please! Besides worrying about that, I have been in the process of rushing for a sorority, which was a long and grueling process. We came back a couple days early from winter break and started the rush process last Friday. We had to stand out in the cold in our outfits and dresses as each day got dressier but it was all worth it in the end. Today was bid day so everyone found out if they were asked to join one of the sororities and the girls could have accepted or declined the bid. I am proud to say that I received a bid from Gamma Phi Beta and accepted so I am now a pledge sister of Gamma Phi. As portrayed from pictures and wall posts on my Facebook, we had a dance party at the Gamma Phi house today where everyone was singing at the top of their lungs and dancing and being goofy and having a good ole time. It was fun to let loose and just be my goofy self around those girls. My roommate and a couple of my friends on my floor got in to Gamma Phi also which was awesome because now we can get ready for all the events and activities together. Well that’s about enough rambling about myself so I look forward to meeting everyone and this upcoming semester!