Harvard Reaches National Platform

When most people skip classes, it usually isn’t because they are doing something productive.

But freshman Kim Goh played hooky to play hockey.

Goh recently returned from Argentina, where she played for the United States Under-19 women’s field hockey team.

The squad played four games against Argentinean field hockey clubs during its tour, which lasted from Apr. 6 to Apr. 10.

Though Goh has been on the U19 team for two years, this was her first trip to Argentina with USA Field Hockey. In 2009, in the wake of the Beijing Olympics, the tour was cancelled for budgetary reasons.

After being chosen as one of the final 21 players looking to make the travelling team, Goh earned an official roster spot in February.

“I was really excited, because I really wanted to go to Argentina the first year,” Goh said. “They did a really wonderful job getting us around [Buenos Aires]. It can be sort of a daunting task taking a team of young Americans to a foreign country.”

The U.S. team played four games against various Argentinean field hockey clubs.

The Americans split two games against Argentina’s U18 team, winning the first game, 2-1, before falling by the count of 3-0 the next day.

Against field hockey club GEBA U18—some of whose players, according to Goh, “[are] on the brink of going to the 2012 Olympics”—the US team lost, 5-0. In the final match of the tour, the squad defeated Banfield U18, 5-0, to finish the trip with a 2-2 record.

“I think that over the course of the four games, we saw some different styles and different levels, but it bodes very well for us towards the end of the tournament,” said Diane Madl, the coach of the American U19 team during the tour.

Madl is currently the head field hockey coach at Providence College. The U19 team she led through the Argentina trip had not played together before February and only began its serious practices in the few days before leaving, according to Goh.

The freshman, who started every game on defense for the Crimson this fall, also earned Madl’s praise for her play during the exhibition tour.

“Kim was ‘Steady Eddie,’” Madl said. “She played very consistently and was a solid member of our defensive unit.”

But beyond the games themselves, Goh noticed a difference in attitudes between competitors before and after the matches.

“It’s really more of a community—we could go practice there and stay for dinner and talk to some of the players,” she said. “That was really great, because we don’t have that here at all. We go to other schools and play them and sometimes hold grudges for a while.”

The Harvard freshman also had the opportunity to represent America rather than her school. Though the exhibitions did not have any major implications, Goh said that her mindset was different from that when playing at Harvard.

It was also a chance to take part in that ubiquitous, three-letter patriotic cheer that permeates almost any sporting event where American pride is at stake.

“The first game, we got to cheer ‘USA,’ which is kind of cliché, but you don’t get to do that [very] often,” Goh said. “It’s kind of humbling and puts things in perspective when you get to say that you’re representing your country.”

She also noted in her blog for Harvard’s athletic department that for many of the players on the team, it was their first chance to represent the United States in competition.

Even at a tournament taking place in another hemisphere, Goh could not put any of her work on hiatus. Madl noted that many of the players—and particularly Goh—spent much of the team’s downtime doing the academic work that they missed because of the tour.

Goh said the same, commenting that she was forced to work remotely for much of the trip and in transit.

“Luckily, I’ve got a lot of classes with lectures online—lots of lectures on plane rides and that kind of thing,” she said. “Everything can be managed, and it’s not something that I wanted to miss.”