While Penn State’s transition into the Big Ten may be beneficial to the big money sports, some of the smaller sports, like field hockey, are experiencing growing pains.
“Specifically looking at joining the Big Ten for field hockey, it did not benefit us,” Lady Lions Coach Char Morett said. “It always helps to be involved in a conference, but I think this year was more distracting, because we have to travel so far.”
Morett believes the University is unnecessarily dumping money into travel expenses, when some of the best competition is within Penn State’s region.
“I think the perspective is out of line, we’re not going to Iowa to make a quarter of a million dollars,” Morett said. “We’re going to play field hockey. I think we’re spending so much, where as we have strong, if not better competition within a bus trip away.”
Morett attributes many of the problems to the Big Ten’s double round-robin schedule. She has been pushing for a system in which the teams would only meet up once during the regular season.
“I feel that there are some good things to come from the Big Ten,” Morett said. “If we can get away from a double round-robin, I think that then I would enjoy being in the Big Ten. But right now we are in the double round-robin, which really puts a burden on our performance academically and athletically.”
The Lady Lions are also missing the large following they had when many of their matches were played regionally.
“We usually had a great following before, but this is the first time, in all my coaching here at Penn State, that we did not have one Penn State fan at a far game. That is tough, usually when we were travelling, our fans were bigger than their fans.”
The fans, however, were not the only ones having problems with all of the travelling involved with the Big Ten. Many of the field hockey players found themselves missing two, three days of class a week due to extended trips.
“For me, the travel was really hard,” senior co-captain Amy Stairs said. “A lot of the work I had to do had to be done on the computers, which is hard to do when you are on a small airplane.”
Stairs, however, was not the only player to run into these academic dilemmas, Sophomore defender Jill Pearsall said without the understanding of her professors she would have ended up much worse than she did.
“I am just lucky that my professors were so great and understanding,” she said. “The traveling really jepordized a lot of people, and I was fortunate that everything worked out for me.”
Senior Danielle Annibale said that she too was caught off guard by the academic strain from the travel, but she said that she accepted that when she became a student athlete.
“This year was really tough for us, but I think it is something everybody has to get used to,” Annibale said. “All the other teams are doing the same things. It is a sacrafice you make when you become a student athlete. You just have to concentrate, and communicate with your professors.”
Next year, however, is not expected to be much better for the Lady Lions travel wise. Seven of the field hockey team’s last eight conference games are away. Given this, combined with this year’s travel experience, the Lady Lions find themselves having to make academic preparations.
Many are looking to take lighter loads, but Pearsall argues that it is not always an option.
“Once you are in your major, you cannot pick and choose,” she said. “If I want to graduate on time, I cannot play around. We are all here for academics first, and right now the way our schedule is, it makes it hard to be a student first.”