Field Hockey Has Its Own Cradle of Coaches
7/15/2020 8:57:00 AM | Field Hockey
The Miami field hockey team has a long history of developing engaged citizens who become leaders in their communities and professions after graduating from this great institution. Known as the "Cradle of Coaches," Miami University has long produced alumni who have entered the coaching profession, desiring to not only give back to the sport but also make it accessible to others. The list of coaches is a long one, and from the very early days of the program in the 1950s, Miami alums have taken their experiences as a student-athlete to the next generation of players by leading their own programs.
Women have been a part of the Miami experience since 1891, and they have participated in field hockey for almost as long. While much is not known about the earliest participants of the sport, we do know that alumna of the field hockey program have been giving back to the sport as coaches from the first half of the 20th century. In the mid-1900s, Martha Bryan, who had served in the US Army, had come to Miami and served as a physical education instructor, teaching, among other things, hockey as part of the required physical education classes all students were required to take. She also served as the coach for the intercollegiate field hockey team that played other schools such as Wittenberg, Earlham, Ohio State and Cincinnati. In the summer of 1951, Marjorie York took over the coaching duties and her senior class included three women that would go on to distinguished careers in the coaching and physical education world. Joan "Jo" Popp '52 graduated from Miami and went on to coach at Capital and Valparaiso before settling in DeKalb, Illinois where she worked at Northern Illinois University for almost 50 years. Dr. Popp's generosity provided for a Motor Behavior Laboratory for the Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education. Teammate Peggy Steig '52 coached at Ohio Wesleyan before becoming the Chair of the Physical Education Department and Women's Athletic Department at Eastern Michigan. Nancy Fry Sturgeon '52 went on to coach the hockey team at Hiram College and teach a multitude of activity classes there before returning to Oxford and joining the faculty at Miami University.
"It was the thing to do," recalled Sturgeon, who was named a member of the Miami Hall of Fame Class of 2020 for her legacy of contributions to the institution. "It was the perfect job for me. For me, it is all about the camaraderie that you develop with your teammates and your players."
Upon Sturgeon's return to Miami, she was asked by Margaret Phillips, the namesake of Phillips Hall and the then-Chair of the Department of Physical Education for Women, if she wanted to serve as graduate assistant in the department. Sturgeon happily accepted, and, while raising a daughter who would go on to coach herself, taught dance, diving, fencing, and many other activity classes in the department. She served as the advisor for the fencing club and was asked to coach the tennis team one summer after the previous coach stepped away at the end of the school year.
"I played tennis as well as field hockey and basketball, and I wanted to be sure that the women had a coach," said Sturgeon, "So I accepted the role."
While the university gave the women's team some money, the bulk of the funds had to be raised. As the Women's Athletic Association (WAA) was responsible for the concessions at the Miami football games, Sturgeon led the charges in sales of popcorn, Coke, and hot dogs to help earn money for the women's teams. With the funds they procured, they were able to purchase a station wagon that would be used to transport the team.
"In honor of our sales, we called her 'PoCoHo,' laughed the Hall of Famer. "We used the wagon—which, granted, really only sat six—to travel to the play days for competition."
While Sturgeon transitioned out of coaching when the WAA was assumed into the Department of Athletics, she did not leave teaching.
"I loved sport, and I loved to teach," affirmed Sturgeon. "I loved working with the women and getting to know them."
Sue (Guesman) Lindner '71 arrived at Miami from Columbus and was one of the women who benefited from Sturgeon's teachings in the department. Lindner played field hockey for Miami and continued the tradition of giving back to the sport after her graduation.
A Health and Physical Education major who came from a family of educators, Lindner had played field hockey at Upper Arlington before coming to Miami, where she joined the field hockey team under the direction of Mary Ellen Landon. She played for three years; her senior year she was student teaching at Talawanda High School so she could not participate in athletics. However, she accepted a full-time position at Talawanda upon graduation where she was a full-time health and PE teacher and coached field hockey, basketball and track. She had to schedule all of her team's games, schedule the umpires, and line the fields for practice and games – all for the sum of $6000 per year.
"I thought I was doing pretty well with that," said Lindner. "But I had always loved sports, and I knew it was what I wanted to do with my life."
Lindner coached at Talawanda for the next three years before she and her husband moved to Colorado in the summer of 1974.
That same year, Miami field hockey was organized formally in the Department of Athletics, and Elaine Heiber was named the women's athletic director. In turn, Claudia Battle was tapped to lead the field hockey women into the varsity era. Buttle commuted every day from Cincinnati to lead the program, setting the tone for a coaching line that would not only model a passion and respect for the sport, but also lead the program from its infancy to a power in the Midwest.
Buttle and Miami attracted many of the strongest players in the state, with top players coming from all parts of Ohio. One of the top recruits that Buttle had was Jane McGough, an All-Star player from the Columbus area. They were player and coach for a year, before Buttle moved away and Heiber brought in Lil Fesperman to serve as the coach. Fesperman arrived in Oxford in 1977 and has lived here ever since, enjoying a career that would see her win over 200 games while taking the first Miami women's team to the national tournament, a hallmark in Miami women's athletics.
"I learned so much from Lil," reminisced McGough. "We might not always have seen things eye-to-eye, but I respected her so much. I believe that many of us got into coaching because of her guidance."
Over the next three years, McGough backstopped the Redskins to some monumental wins, including a stroke-off victory in the 1979 state semifinals that advanced Miami to the finals of the state tournament for the first time ever. After graduation, McGough's career path took her to Iowa State, where she reconnected with Heiber, and then to Franklin University, where she coached basketball and served as the overall sports administrator.Â
"Field hockey was my sport, however," stated the Columbus native, "and when a position opened up at Oberlin, I went for it."
While at Oberlin from 1984-1987, McGough helped the Yeowomen to a winning record in 1987—the first one at the school. In addition, she coached Robin Cardin in the cage. Cardin earned four All-Conference honors, and the goalie was named Player of the Year that year after she set the all-time NCAA record for saves in a career with 1233 career saves—a number that still stands.
"Lil taught us so much," said McGough. "She exemplified a strong work ethic and demanded one from us. She laughed with us, and she challenged us, and we all grew from the experience. I am thankful for my experience playing field hockey for four years at Miami."
The trend of strong Ohio players coming to Miami continued under Fesperman. One of the first players to come was Elli Workum '81, who attended (Cincinnati) Wyoming High School. Suzanne Roudabush '80, who played at (Cincinnati) Indian Hill, arrived after transferring from Bowling Green. These two, along with McGough and their teammates, continued to build the program.
Workum was scoring at a torrid pace, and Roudabush and the rest of the backfield kept pace defensively. Both were physical education majors who were soaking up the experience and ready to share that experience with a new generation of players. In 1980, the Miami field hockey team advanced to the national tournament, marking the first time in school history that a women's team had advanced that far. While Workum was finishing out her Hall of Fame career that season, Davis returned to her alma mater of Indian Hill where she joined forces with Carol Wehmann, her field hockey coach, and ran the sidelines with her.
"It was such an honor to me to be able to follow in the footsteps of the women who had given me so many opportunities," stated Davis. "Elaine Heiber had been my eighth grade physical education teacher, and to be able to coach alongside my coach was a way I could show my appreciation."
Davis' brother John, another Miami grad who was, incidentally, the MVP of the 1974 Tangerine Bowl, was also coaching at Indian Hill, making it an all-family affair. The 1980-81 academic year saw another family member join the coaching ranks at the school—Workum, Davis' MUFH sister.
"Elli was the perfect complement to the program," recalled Davis. "I coached the JV program, she assisted the head coach, and we all coached track together." The following year, Wehmann left Indian Hill and Workum spent the next couple of years as the head coach before she stepped away from the sport to pursue her sales career.
Hockey, however, was in Workum's blood, and she wasn't going to leave it. It was during this time that she realized that she could help the sport by becoming an umpire, so she got her certificated from the Ohio State High School Athletic Association and was able to fit in games around her sales career. She loved working the middle school games to help develop the base of players at the younger level and talking with coaches about the game and helping the players with the sport.
When Workum relocated to Louisville a couple of years later, she continued to give back to the sport by joining the umpires' association there. When she showed up at a game at Eastern High School, she ran into none other than Davis.
"We had relocated to Louisville, and my daughter was playing field hockey," remembered Davis. "When I took her to practice, I introduced myself to the coach and told her I was willing to help if she needed any. She took me up on the offer and I started coaching the JV team."
"To see Suzanne coaching again was fun for me," said Workum. "It was great to reconnect with her."
Women have been a part of the Miami experience since 1891, and they have participated in field hockey for almost as long. While much is not known about the earliest participants of the sport, we do know that alumna of the field hockey program have been giving back to the sport as coaches from the first half of the 20th century. In the mid-1900s, Martha Bryan, who had served in the US Army, had come to Miami and served as a physical education instructor, teaching, among other things, hockey as part of the required physical education classes all students were required to take. She also served as the coach for the intercollegiate field hockey team that played other schools such as Wittenberg, Earlham, Ohio State and Cincinnati. In the summer of 1951, Marjorie York took over the coaching duties and her senior class included three women that would go on to distinguished careers in the coaching and physical education world. Joan "Jo" Popp '52 graduated from Miami and went on to coach at Capital and Valparaiso before settling in DeKalb, Illinois where she worked at Northern Illinois University for almost 50 years. Dr. Popp's generosity provided for a Motor Behavior Laboratory for the Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education. Teammate Peggy Steig '52 coached at Ohio Wesleyan before becoming the Chair of the Physical Education Department and Women's Athletic Department at Eastern Michigan. Nancy Fry Sturgeon '52 went on to coach the hockey team at Hiram College and teach a multitude of activity classes there before returning to Oxford and joining the faculty at Miami University.
"It was the thing to do," recalled Sturgeon, who was named a member of the Miami Hall of Fame Class of 2020 for her legacy of contributions to the institution. "It was the perfect job for me. For me, it is all about the camaraderie that you develop with your teammates and your players."
Upon Sturgeon's return to Miami, she was asked by Margaret Phillips, the namesake of Phillips Hall and the then-Chair of the Department of Physical Education for Women, if she wanted to serve as graduate assistant in the department. Sturgeon happily accepted, and, while raising a daughter who would go on to coach herself, taught dance, diving, fencing, and many other activity classes in the department. She served as the advisor for the fencing club and was asked to coach the tennis team one summer after the previous coach stepped away at the end of the school year.
"I played tennis as well as field hockey and basketball, and I wanted to be sure that the women had a coach," said Sturgeon, "So I accepted the role."
While the university gave the women's team some money, the bulk of the funds had to be raised. As the Women's Athletic Association (WAA) was responsible for the concessions at the Miami football games, Sturgeon led the charges in sales of popcorn, Coke, and hot dogs to help earn money for the women's teams. With the funds they procured, they were able to purchase a station wagon that would be used to transport the team.
"In honor of our sales, we called her 'PoCoHo,' laughed the Hall of Famer. "We used the wagon—which, granted, really only sat six—to travel to the play days for competition."
While Sturgeon transitioned out of coaching when the WAA was assumed into the Department of Athletics, she did not leave teaching.
"I loved sport, and I loved to teach," affirmed Sturgeon. "I loved working with the women and getting to know them."
Sue (Guesman) Lindner '71 arrived at Miami from Columbus and was one of the women who benefited from Sturgeon's teachings in the department. Lindner played field hockey for Miami and continued the tradition of giving back to the sport after her graduation.
A Health and Physical Education major who came from a family of educators, Lindner had played field hockey at Upper Arlington before coming to Miami, where she joined the field hockey team under the direction of Mary Ellen Landon. She played for three years; her senior year she was student teaching at Talawanda High School so she could not participate in athletics. However, she accepted a full-time position at Talawanda upon graduation where she was a full-time health and PE teacher and coached field hockey, basketball and track. She had to schedule all of her team's games, schedule the umpires, and line the fields for practice and games – all for the sum of $6000 per year.
"I thought I was doing pretty well with that," said Lindner. "But I had always loved sports, and I knew it was what I wanted to do with my life."
Lindner coached at Talawanda for the next three years before she and her husband moved to Colorado in the summer of 1974.
That same year, Miami field hockey was organized formally in the Department of Athletics, and Elaine Heiber was named the women's athletic director. In turn, Claudia Battle was tapped to lead the field hockey women into the varsity era. Buttle commuted every day from Cincinnati to lead the program, setting the tone for a coaching line that would not only model a passion and respect for the sport, but also lead the program from its infancy to a power in the Midwest.
Buttle and Miami attracted many of the strongest players in the state, with top players coming from all parts of Ohio. One of the top recruits that Buttle had was Jane McGough, an All-Star player from the Columbus area. They were player and coach for a year, before Buttle moved away and Heiber brought in Lil Fesperman to serve as the coach. Fesperman arrived in Oxford in 1977 and has lived here ever since, enjoying a career that would see her win over 200 games while taking the first Miami women's team to the national tournament, a hallmark in Miami women's athletics.
"I learned so much from Lil," reminisced McGough. "We might not always have seen things eye-to-eye, but I respected her so much. I believe that many of us got into coaching because of her guidance."
Over the next three years, McGough backstopped the Redskins to some monumental wins, including a stroke-off victory in the 1979 state semifinals that advanced Miami to the finals of the state tournament for the first time ever. After graduation, McGough's career path took her to Iowa State, where she reconnected with Heiber, and then to Franklin University, where she coached basketball and served as the overall sports administrator.Â
"Field hockey was my sport, however," stated the Columbus native, "and when a position opened up at Oberlin, I went for it."
While at Oberlin from 1984-1987, McGough helped the Yeowomen to a winning record in 1987—the first one at the school. In addition, she coached Robin Cardin in the cage. Cardin earned four All-Conference honors, and the goalie was named Player of the Year that year after she set the all-time NCAA record for saves in a career with 1233 career saves—a number that still stands.
"Lil taught us so much," said McGough. "She exemplified a strong work ethic and demanded one from us. She laughed with us, and she challenged us, and we all grew from the experience. I am thankful for my experience playing field hockey for four years at Miami."
The trend of strong Ohio players coming to Miami continued under Fesperman. One of the first players to come was Elli Workum '81, who attended (Cincinnati) Wyoming High School. Suzanne Roudabush '80, who played at (Cincinnati) Indian Hill, arrived after transferring from Bowling Green. These two, along with McGough and their teammates, continued to build the program.
Workum was scoring at a torrid pace, and Roudabush and the rest of the backfield kept pace defensively. Both were physical education majors who were soaking up the experience and ready to share that experience with a new generation of players. In 1980, the Miami field hockey team advanced to the national tournament, marking the first time in school history that a women's team had advanced that far. While Workum was finishing out her Hall of Fame career that season, Davis returned to her alma mater of Indian Hill where she joined forces with Carol Wehmann, her field hockey coach, and ran the sidelines with her.
"It was such an honor to me to be able to follow in the footsteps of the women who had given me so many opportunities," stated Davis. "Elaine Heiber had been my eighth grade physical education teacher, and to be able to coach alongside my coach was a way I could show my appreciation."
Davis' brother John, another Miami grad who was, incidentally, the MVP of the 1974 Tangerine Bowl, was also coaching at Indian Hill, making it an all-family affair. The 1980-81 academic year saw another family member join the coaching ranks at the school—Workum, Davis' MUFH sister.
"Elli was the perfect complement to the program," recalled Davis. "I coached the JV program, she assisted the head coach, and we all coached track together." The following year, Wehmann left Indian Hill and Workum spent the next couple of years as the head coach before she stepped away from the sport to pursue her sales career.
Hockey, however, was in Workum's blood, and she wasn't going to leave it. It was during this time that she realized that she could help the sport by becoming an umpire, so she got her certificated from the Ohio State High School Athletic Association and was able to fit in games around her sales career. She loved working the middle school games to help develop the base of players at the younger level and talking with coaches about the game and helping the players with the sport.
When Workum relocated to Louisville a couple of years later, she continued to give back to the sport by joining the umpires' association there. When she showed up at a game at Eastern High School, she ran into none other than Davis.
"We had relocated to Louisville, and my daughter was playing field hockey," remembered Davis. "When I took her to practice, I introduced myself to the coach and told her I was willing to help if she needed any. She took me up on the offer and I started coaching the JV team.""To see Suzanne coaching again was fun for me," said Workum. "It was great to reconnect with her."
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