Continuing a relationship that has been growing during the past year and a half, Ohio field hockey coach Neil Macmillan has brought on members of the Army ROTC to become guest coaches for home games.
Ever since Macmillan was an assistant coach at Wake Forest, the tradition of having guest coaches at home games has been strong. When he first took the head coaching job at Ohio eight years ago, he continued the guest coaching program with the Bobcats.
“Basically, that was a way to get faculty and other members of staff around the university to experience what it’s like, going through their game day routine,” Macmillan said. “That’s how it initially came about.”
In the past few years, Macmillan said the academic services of the athletics department wanted to take over the guest-coaching program and build a connection between faculty and Athletics, causing the program to lose importance with the field hockey program.
That’s why Macmillan brought it back in a slightly different form this season with members from ROTC.
“With our connection to the ROTC, it is a good opportunity to give both cadets and officers the opportunity to see what we do on a game day,” he said. “It gives them another side of athletics that not many people regularly see.”
Though the guest coaches might not do more than help pick up balls at the end of warm-ups, they get a firsthand look at what it is like to be a Division I athlete.
Lt. Col. Terry St. Peter said that their relationship with the field hockey team was forged last year. During the course of the connection, St. Peter has seen many parallels between the leadership taught in ROTC and the leadership lessons taught by Macmillan.
“Coach Macmillan has deemed this year’s theme for his team to be ‘Army Values,’ ” St. Peter said. “Here in the ROTC leadership program, we’re all about teaching army values, which are under the acronym ‘Leadership.’ Each value is extremely important and just by adopting that theme is a natural link-up with the Army ROTC and our leadership program here.”
The guest coaches are able attend everything from the warm-ups and the inspirational speeches to the game planning and the on-field experience of coaching, St. Peter said.
“It is a different venue for them to observe a leader commanding his unit or organization and it’s provided invaluable insight,” St. Peter said.
Macmillan suggested that the ROTC use the guest coaching program as some kind of a reward system, using the opportunity to be on the field with a Division I Athletics program as recognition of their hard work and dedication.
“To have access to a collegiate team that we’re having is certainly a reward to anybody,” St. Peter said. “That’s not something that anybody off the streets is going to get. We reward some of our deserving cadets with the ability to participate in the program.”
In the future, the relationship between the programs will strengthen, as St. Peter and Macmillan have discussed invitations to ROTC team building exercises, training events and physical fitness tests when field hockey enters its offseason.
“It just facilitates the understanding and appreciation for both of our roles here at Ohio University,” St. Peter said.
ch203310@ohiou.edu
