Parents come together to support girls’ field hockey team

For some people, memories of high school sports quickly become a collection of trophies gathering dust on a shelf that are rarely thought about again. For the Talawanda High School field hockey team, the sport isn’t just something to check off on a college application; it’s a community that continues to grow and support each other.

Maggie Stenger, a Talawanda High School graduate who now majors in marketing at the Miami University Hamilton campus, said she initially joined the field hockey team after being cut from the volleyball team her freshman year of high school.

“Looking back, getting cut from volleyball was probably one of the best things to happen to me,” Stenger said. “I just found such a strong community, and it really just … changed my high school experience.”

Stenger continued to play field hockey through her entire high school career, even after the program’s funding was cut in 2023 following the disbandment of the boys’ ice hockey team. Since there was no boys’ team for hockey, the high school cut funding for the girls’ field hockey team in compliance with Title IX. 

“Title IX requires that women and men be provided equitable opportunities to participate in sports,” according to the NCAA. “Title IX does not require institutions to offer identical sports but an equal opportunity to play.”

Because there was no exact equivalent for the boys’ ice hockey team, Talawanda revoked funding for the girls’ field hockey team, as its most similar sport, so the school would offer the same number of opportunities for both boys’ and girls’ sports.

Dotti Thacker, whose daughter played on the field hockey team, formed a group with parents of other players to create the Talawanda Brave field hockey club team. Running the program was a challenge; Thacker and the parents not only had to find a coach and recruit more players, but they also had to find a new field. 

“We were just really three parents that just wanted our girls to continue the sport,” Thacker said.

Thacker said funding the team has been the biggest obstacle. The club costs roughly $12,000-$13,000 to run every year, Thacker said. Each player is charged $300 to participate, and the rest of the funding comes from other sources. This includes fundraisers, like the club’s t-shirt sales at the Oxford Bee Festival, donations from alumni and grants from Butler Rural Electric Cooperative and the Oxford Rotary Club.

Despite being a smaller sport, the team’s alumni network remains strong. Many of the former players act as coaches and continue to support the team.

“A lot of our alumni … still come to the practices or help with scorekeeping and stuff like that,” Stenger said.

Stenger, who doesn’t play the sport anymore, said she still enjoys helping out at the games and has agreed to act as the team’s social media and marketing manager during the upcoming season.

Sydnee Berryman, a 2023 Talawanda High School graduate, decided to join the team after Janet Holmes, then high school field hockey coach, brought the sport’s equipment to Berryman’s softball practice at the end of her eighth-grade year and encouraged the girls to try it out. Berryman loved the sport and went on to play all four years of high school.

After graduating, Berryman returned to the team as an assistant coach for a year, which she said was an interesting shift after having played with many of the girls.

Berryman also coached the middle school field hockey team, which is relatively new, for two seasons. The team represents a new potential recruitment pipeline for the high school team, which struggled to win against opposing teams when many players had never participated in field hockey before high school. Now, the Talawanda Brave team can begin recruiting students who have already learned to love the sport. 

“My favorite part of coaching was definitely the middle schoolers,” Berryman said. “I always made it a point to make it more about how fun it was more than getting super great (at the sport).”