An English woman by the name of Constance Applebee brought field hockey to the United States in 1901. Before this, field hockey was predominantly a male sport in European countries and was believed to be started by the ancient Egyptians or Greeks. In 1920 the U.S. took its first women’s field hockey team on tour to England to compete internationally. While field hockey was a male dominated sport in Europe, it was not played by men in the U.S. until 1930. The U.S. Field Hockey team was supposed to compete in their first Olympic games in 1980 but a boycott prevented them from playing. In 1984 the U.S. Women’s team competed in their first Olympic Games and won the bronze medal.
Field Hockey is currently a NCAA Division I, II and III scholarship sport in over 250 schools across the U.S. Over 75 Division I and 25 Division II schools have field hockey and give over 1,200 scholarships each year.
