One in an occasional series.
In 1998, I was attending the National Futures Tournament, the annual summer tournament featuring all-star teams from each region of the U.S. development apparatus for the U-16 and U-19 divisions.
During a break in the action, I was standing on a grassy knoll near the recreational turf facility used for the 9-v-9 contests, and I was chatting with Vonnie Gros, head coach of the U.S. women’s national team through the late 70s through the 1984 Olympics. She had also had a hand in the startup of Futures, the program which develops players through training and tournament play towards possible selection for age-group national teams.
In the midst of a wide-ranging conversation, she cocked her ear and said, “You know what’s missing? Listen.”
I heard the breezes on the turf surface, which, at the time was short-pile AstroTurf. You could hear footfalls of field players in their turf shoows, the occasional sound of moonboots, and the smack of mulberry against plastic.
“Nobody’s scoring,” she said after a pause.
She was right.
And she was right about many things about her life in hockey. Right up until her death on Feb. 28th, she had the mentality of a coach. The USA Field Hockey website wrote this on their site day before yesterday:
This past June, shortly after her 90th birthday, former athletes and teammates gathered in Waynesboro, Pa. to celebrate her. When it was Vonnie’s turn to speak, she returned to the game, explaining why the Dutch and Germans had historically been ahead of the United States: because we couldn’t keep possession of the ball.
Classic Vonnie — even at 90, she was still coaching.
I think my encounters with her over the years, at games, coaching conventions, and elsewhere, shaped the way I perceive the game, I see it from the view of not only a journalist, but as a tactician. It’s not enough to see what is there on the field of play, but sometimes you have to be cognizant of what is absent.
Like, for instance, scoring.
But what you have to understand about Vonnie Gros is that she had a deep and rich life in both field hockey and lacrosse. She spent a decade on the senior women’s national teams in both sports. She traveled, played, and coached in many different nations. Her teammates and pupils learned plenty from her over the decades.
I think one metric you can use to define Gros is her incredible record at West Chester University from 1964 to 1976. During that era, she had 100 wins, 16 draws, and just seven defeats. In point of fact, that is a winning percentage which places her in the higher echelons of coaches in the history of collegiate field hockey — from all divisions, all sanctioning bodies.
She took that success with her to coach with the U.S. women’s national team beginning in 1977. She took with her a lesson while watching training for the Philadelphia Atoms, a pro soccer team in the North American Soccer League. The lesson: change formation from the British five-forward, two-back system to what many teams use today: four forwards, three midfielders, three backs.
I’ll leave you with a little reading material: a profile written before the back lot at West Chester was named “Vonnie Gros Field.”
Safe home, Coach.