Being a Good Sport

I fully understand that this will be of little interest to most people here, and by "little interest," that's the polite way of saying "probably none."  But one of the nice things about having a website is that you can post such things anyway, and if no one else wants to read them, they can hopefully just return later for other folderol.

So, with that said and out of the way, I was thrilled to see the news from the beloved Northwestern that their #2-ranked women's field hockey team won the National Championship yesterday.  O huzzah!  Big congratulations.  They beat #4-ranked St. Joseph University by the score of 5-0.  (All five goals were scored in the first half, the most-ever scored in a half in the sport's NCAA history.)  In fact, all the better, this was the team's second National Championship in the past four years.

Northwestern is not particularly know for their National Championships in sports.  More accurately, they've won 11.  And oddly, their women's "field" teams during the past 20 years have not only been incredibly successful, but those past two decades are when they won 10 of the National Championships.  Remarkably, the Northwestern women's lacrosse team has won eight National Championships since 2005, when they started their streak of winning five in a row!  And now these two National Championships for the women's field hockey team in the past four years.

(To complete the record, the only other National Championship for Northwestern was when the men's fencing team won it in 1941.  So...well, yeah, it's really just been these two women's "field" teams over the last 20 years.)

As it happens, when I was back in Evanston this past May, I wandered around campus and even stopped to take a photo of the women's lacrosse team at practice.  Though they were just finishing up, so the picture has its limits.  But it at least adds a personal touch to this all.  I am sure that this is either the same field that the women's field hockey team plays on, or it's directly next to it (behind the stands).

And now, we take you to the field in Ann Arbor, Michigan for a 4-1/2-minute recap of yesterday's National Championship game.  (It says "six minutes", but there's filler at the end) --