Field Hockey at ODU

The Field Hockey program at ODU plays their games at the L.R. Hill Sports Complex on the campus of Old Dominion University (ODU). The field hockey team currently has nine NCAA national championship titles.

History

The field hockey team began shortly after the Norfolk Division was established in 1930, when it was known simply as the hockey team. The first known coach of the team was Catherine Cubberly. Like most of the athletics teams at the Norfolk Division, the hockey team played other junior college and trade schools in Virginia. Before World War II, there were several years where there were not enough players to organize a team, but a more formal program was established in 1945 with Nancy Fisher as the head coach. While most of the women’s athletic programs were intramural, basketball and field hockey were the only intercollegiate sports from the 1950s until the early 1970s.

It wasn’t until the hiring of head coach Beth Anders in 1980 that the field hockey program gained national notoriety. The team won their first NCAA national championship in 1982, and won additional national championships in 1983, 1984, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1998, and 2000. The most dominant player in the 1980s, Yogi Hightower, was a two-time All-American player and the first African American to receive the Honda Award for the nation’s top player. In 1995, Samantha Salvia, who was a captain on the field hockey team, became ODU’s first Rhodes Scholar.

Head Coaches

Catherine Cubberly (1934-1936)

Margaret Holloman (1936-1938?)

Nancy Fisher (1945-1947)

Jane McMurran (1948-1949)

Emily Pittman (1950-1954. 1956-1959)

Betty Godwin (1955)

Lillian Seats (1960-1967)

Francine Hermance (1968-1971)

Carol Anthony (1972-1973)

Janet Rockwell (1974)

Mikki Flowers (1975-1979)

Beth Anders (1980-2012)

Andrew Griffiths (2013-Present)

Resources

1. Old Dominion University Photographic and Multimedia Collection, Special Collections and University Archives, Old Dominion University Libraries.
2. ODU Photographic Collection, Old Dominion University Libraries Digital Collections, Old Dominion University Libraries.

References

1. Bookman, Steven and Jessica Ritchie. Old Dominion University: A Campus History Series.  Arcadia Publishing. Charleston, South Carolina, 2017.
2. Mace & Crown, Old Dominion University