ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, July 26, 1996 TAG: 9607260054
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Our Eyes In Atlanta
DATELINE: ATLANTA
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
HE SUFFERS FROM THE DISTINCTION of coaching a men's field hockey team that has never won. But Jeff Woods keeps trying because he loves the game.
It takes sacrifice to reach the Olympics in your sport, and Jeff Woods hasn't seen much of his wife or two children since January.
He's missed them for this?
Woods, when he's home, lives in Radford, a city that should erect a sign proclaiming itself Southwest Virginia's Olympic Village. U.S. shooter Ben Amonette lives there, too.
Woods, 39, is an assistant coach of the U.S. men's field hockey team in the Atlanta Games. He's been the RU women's head coach for a decade, the longest tenure among Highlanders' coaches.
On the world's biggest athletic stage, however, Woods helps guide a men's team in a country in which males don't much play field hockey. For women, it's a popular NCAA championship sport.
As the U.S. finished another loss on the artificial turf Wednesday at Morris Brown College's new stadium, Woods, from his pressbox post high above the 4-0 India victory, had a brief assessment:
``Ugly, but better,'' said the red-haired coach.
Call this the Creamed Team.
Men's field hockey in the Olympics dates to 1908. The U.S. played for the first time in the 1932 Los Angeles Games.
The team never has won, and is 0-22-3 in Olympic history entering tonight's game against Spain. It did win a bronze medal in those '32 Games at home, however.
How?
There were only three teams entered.
The U.S. has played in just two Olympics in 40 years, qualifying only as the host team. It doesn't figure to get into the field any other way any time soon.
``It's a struggle,'' said Woods, a James Madison University graduate who became interested in the sport while working in the school's sports information office. ``Women play field hockey here. In these other countries, men play, too.''
England, before it was combined with Wales and Scotland to compete in the Games as Great Britain, won the first Olympic gold medal in field hockey. Women didn't play the sport in the Summer Games until 1980 in Moscow.
Woods, a Stafford native, was briefly a walk-on football player at Virginia Tech before transferring to JMU, where he walked on in baseball. He became intrigued by the iceless hockey, too.
He first played organized field hockey when he went to England as a JMU exchange student in 1984.
``That was pretty ugly,'' he said. ``But I could run and I was aggressive, and I loved the game. I still do.''
After a season with the Birkbeck College squad in London, he returned home and because of his experience and athletic ability, immediately began playing on a national level.
He played in the 1986 Olympic Festival and since has coached in four of those festivals. He was named an Olympic assistant in February by new head coach Jon Clark, who took over the national program that's based in Chula Vista, Calif.
Field hockey's roots are as a male sport. The earliest record of field hockey is a drawing dating from 2050 B.C. on a tomb in the Nile Valley of Egypt. It moved to the U.S. as a women's sport in 1901, when British teacher Constance Applebee introduced it at Harvard.
``We have a few players from the East Coast, and there's a development league in New York, but most of our players come from California,'' said Woods, who's been with the Olympic team training and traveling since the start of the year.
``There's a youth league in Ventura County, Calif., that grew out of the Los Angeles Games. But we don't play it in schools, or at least boys don't. It's tough, but we deal with it. It's not recognized as a men's sport here. In other countries, they grow up with it.''
Woods was also previously the softball coach and volleyball coach at Radford, and he's been the athletic department's equipment manager, too. Field hockey is his emphasis, however, and he wishes the U.S. men's program got more of that, too. But, they still have to win respect - and an Olympic match.
``This is different, playing at this level,'' Woods said. ``It's great to be in the Olympics, but the way we played our first two games [in losses to Pakistan and Argentina], we just weren't ready for the moment.''
Woods finally will be coming home next week after his first Olympic experience. He knows it won't be with a medal.
At this point, he'd be satisfied with an Olympic victory. If it doesn't happen in Atlanta, it's going to be at least 2008 before it will have the opportunity again.
LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Woodsby CNB