August 17-21st.

An email I sent this morning to as many parents/players as I could...

Good Morning Parents and Players,

I hope you all had a good and restful weekend! This afternoon we have JV field hockey practice from 3:30pm until 4:30pm. Varsity practice will begin at 4:15pm and run until 6:15pm. This week will be an unusual one, and I apologize in advance for the possible confusion. Tuesday (August 18th, 4:00pm, at Hermitage) and Thursday (August 20th, 5:00pm, at St. Joseph's Villa vs. Varina), we have our first two Varsity Field Hockey games of the season! These two schools do not have JV teams, so unfortunately our first JV games are not until a bit later in the season. For Tuesday, our JV practice will be officially canceled. However, I STRONGLY encourage our JV team to come and watch the Varsity game. Many girls have never seen a game actually played, and to watch our own Varsity team would be a great learning experience; not to mention a morale booster for the Varsity team! On Thursday, since the game is a home game, I will expect that the JV team attends the Varsity game. It is very important that the teams support each other, and when JV has a game that Varsity does not, I will expect the same.

I am also looking for parents to be in charge of an email/telephone tree for each grade. I think this will be a more effective system for getting information out in a timely way. I am looking for one senior parent, one junior parent, 2 sophomore parents, 3 freshmen parents, and 2 middle school parents. Do not forget to check the field hockey website (http://gatorhockey.blogspot.com) for information as well.

This season I would also like to get video footage of most of our games. This will help the teams be able to see their faults, as well as when a team mate scores or has a defensive save. Footage of our games could also help many of our girls who wish to play in college, but cannot get a scout to come to a game. If any parents would be willing to volunteer their time and effort, this would be greatly appreciated!!

For our middle school parents, our 7th and 8th grade players may come to any JV practice/game. We begin today, but Tuesday/Thursday are a bit different, as I mentioned above.

One more thing, as I know I must be droning on at this point. I will be discussing today at practice, exactly what equipment everyone needs for games, practices, etc. For your benefit, I will reiterate here. Everyone on the JV and Varsity teams must have a field hockey stick, a pair of shinguards, a mouthguard, a hockey mask/goggles (http://www.dickssportinggoods.com/family/index.jsp?categoryId=1431675), a pair of green soccer socks without stripes, a pair of white soccer socks without stripes, their green "away game" jersey, their white "home game" jersey, their hockey uniform skirt, a pair of black spandex/soffe shorts to wear underneath the skirt, and a water bottle. For middle school players, we are working on the uniform situation, so consider that you need everything above minus the two jerseys and the skirt.

If there are problems buying any of these, please let me know and I am sure we will be able to work something out. Also consider Play It Again Sports as an option for some of this equipment. They usually carry the hockey goggles and sticks.

Thank you so much, and looking forward to a successful and positive season,
Kendall Isenberg