Festive Field Hockey Fun

America's Got Talent, Not Time

Let's take a dive into the talent pool. America’s got talent. A lot of talent. What it doesn’t have though is time and a cohesive system to identify and develop that talent to maturity. The short timeline for the development of talent undermines the country's ability to succeed at the highest level. A multitude of factors play a role, yet the most influential is the win now mentality driven by the demands of college and youth sport. This mentality - and the money behind it - dominates the American sport landscape; it leads to early selection and deselection, myopic views of talent, and the narrowing of the playing pool before most athletes have time to emerge and fully develop. Recruiting accelerates the timeline. We expect more from athletes at an earlier age. We evaluate them at an earlier age. We select and deselect them at an earlier age. The consequence is that an abundance of talent drops out of the pathway, or goes unidentified and undeveloped. A number of factor...

Letters

Dear Rachel, I hope you play better today. But I hope more that you enjoy your play today. This might upset you but I was never really into winning or losing. I always loved just watching you play - when you were just playing the game and using your own abilities. And when the object of the game is to get the ball into the goal, and you play just to get it in goal, not to add up a score but to get it into the goal. I loved the goals they always give me chills simply because it is the object of the game - not because it makes you win. And then when you are playing to keep the goals from the other team, and you just block them because it is the object of the game not so they do not get points, or so you don't lose, but you play just to keep it out simply because that is the object of the game. I love that too. What I took from today was pretty simple - half the battle is your presence and your voice - you touch the ball, on a good day, for about a minute during a 70...

In the End, There's Love

This is dedicated to a teacher and coach who challenged me to live the lessons she taught. Thank you, Coach Shelton. After 42 years, Karen Shelton retired. I still can’t believe it is true. When I first saw the post, I scrolled quickly passed it, thinking it was another celebration post - the type that has become customary to Tar Heel fans over the past decade of Carolina Field Hockey dominance. A few seconds later, something made me pause. There was something more in that post. So I went back and read it fully. My stomach dropped. My eyes welled with tears. A flood of emotions overcame me. Indescribable emotions. There was shock. This is really happening. There was grief. This is the end of an era. An end that always seemed unfathomable. I can't imagine a Carolina (or recruiting sideline) without Karen Shelton (and Willy) leading it. There was love. The love surprised me the most. That it was still there, beating strong, after t...

The Athlete Way

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