Every Ohio soccer player knows two words apply for every home match.
Protect Chessa.
Each Bobcat who leaves the locker room passes a framed photo of Chessa Field that has those words, written on the bottom of the photo. Assistant coach Amy Rossi, an Ohio player from 2003 to 2006, felt the need to put the picture up this season for the players to see.
“I want them to have some pride each game. This is your home field, you have to learn how to protect it and work as hard as you can to protect it,” Rossi said.
Rossi hung up the photo in the locker room before the first game of the season against Wright State and, once up, the players were immediately reminded of where and for whom they were playing.
“We always hit it before we go out of the locker room,” goalkeeper Mattie Liston said. “We just started that this year, and it’s kind of a new thing. It’s about pride and trying to win on our home field.”
The coaching staff has always stressed the importance of winning at home each season, but with the picture now up, it is stressed even more. The result has been greater emphasis on the pride of being a Bobcat, especially for players such as Liston.
“Every team feels pride in winning at home and winning in front of their home fans,” Liston said. “That’s just how we kind of remind ourselves that this is a home game. They’re all important, but we’re at home right now, so it makes it extra special.”
Ohio has won three of its six home games this season, taking down Pittsburgh, Indiana State and Eastern Michigan.
In 2001, Scott Blower, Ohio’s West Green and athletics grounds supervisor, and Crista, his wife, donated $70,000 to Ohio Athletics with $60,000 of that going to renovate the Shafer Street Soccer Field.
Once the renovations were finished in 2002, the field was renamed after the Blowers’ 10-year-old daughter, Chessa.
The field had already been named when Rossi joined the team as a player, but the saying ‘Protect Chessa’ was something the upperclassmen consistently spoke about, she said.
“There was a huge thing of ‘Protect Chessa,’ and so I wanted to bring that back, and Stacy always mentions it even if the players may not know who Chessa is as a person,” Rossi said.
But Rossi knew Chessa during her days on the pitch. That connection makes the field’s name a little more tangible.
“Chessa used to come to soccer camp when I was a player, so Chessa and her brother Drew were always kind of around at our games with their dad,” Rossi said. “So all of us as players knew who Chessa was, and now she is older she doesn’t really play soccer anymore, but it’s still nice for them to recognize who she is and the background of the story.”
Strauss and her team focus on pride for defending their field and the team they play for. Before each game, the players set team goals to accomplish and work toward during the game.
The photo of Chessa Field hanging in the locker room has amplified that pride.
“I think there is a lot more pride with it now,” Rossi said. “The players set five team goals going into each game that we attempt to achieve. One of them is to earn a shutout and another is to win at home.
“I think, especially at home, you want to win, you never want to lose on your own field. I think they have really bought into that, and it’s helping.”
When the players next leave the locker room on Oct. 14 to face Miami, they will pass the same photo that they have seen and be reminded that they are on the field to protect their home.
“We had an opportunity for them to see it and learn it, and now that we’re in conference play, it’s even more important to win at home,” Rossi said.
mb832409@ohiou.edu
