If you think only men's sports are hard and rough, you had better get that idea out of your head. At the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, there are a handful of alumni women who know what it is like to play a physical contact sport, which also requires endurance. The sport is field hockey, a game first played by the Persians, refined in 1875 by the English, and introduced to North America in 1901 by Constance Applebee.

The game is similar to ice hockey, where 11 players from one team attempt to hit a hard, rubber ball across a field 100 yards long by 60 yards wide, and into the net of the opposition. The ball's path during the scoring drive is controlled by sticks resembling thick upside-down walking canes. It would be an easy feat were it not for the 11 defenders who try to simultaneously change the direction of the ball to start an offense of their own. The 11 players for each team consist of one goalie, four forwards (wingers), two midfielders (link players), three wing halfbacks (thrusters), and a fullback (sweeper).

What makes the game so brutal at times are the flying sticks, the hard, rubber ball, and the fact that the game is played in the same conditions that the mailmen make their rounds--even during rain, sleet, slow, and ice. To compound matters, there are 35-minute halves. No timeouts are allowed, and the intermission is only 5 minutes long. The only breaks in play (you could hardly call them lengthy breathers) come when the ball is knocked out of bounds, a foul is committed, or a goal is scored.

Field hockey is one of the oldest women's sports at UWO; Miss Shepardson introduced it in 1906 at Combination Park. Due to the expensive equipment, field hockey had minimal play. Not until 1920 did field hockey start to pick up again, when it was played as an interest group (much like intramurals). Interest groups played on and off during the years until the early 1960s when "Rusty" Coogan coached. Deloris Dudek coached in 1967. Then Coach Helen Briwa (originally from the east, the "hotbed" of field hockey) made women's field hockey a competitive intercollegiate sport in 1968.

From 1968 to 1979, the Titans played in the College North Field Hockey Association (CNFHA), which consisted of twelve teams: Northern Michigan University, Bemidji State College, Carleton College, Concordia College, Moorhead State College, University of Minnesota, UW River Falls, UW Green Bay, UW Stevens Point, University of North Dakota, South Dakota State University, and UW Oshkosh. The Wisconsin Women's Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WWIAC) was the conference from 1980 to 1982, and included UW Green Bay, UW Milwaukee, UW Madison, UW Whitewater, UW Stevens Point, UW River Falls, UW Platteville, UW La Crosse, and UW Oshkosh.

Coach Briwa retired coaching in 1982. After her retirment, women's field hockey only lasted one more year as a club sport in 1983. Milestones in UWO women's field hockey

Field hockey players repair their net before a game (undated).