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AU's Jennings Named to U.S. National Team Staff
Will serve as assistant coach during World Cup qualifying tournament

Sept. 6, 2001

Steve Jennings heads to France this month with the U.S. National Field Hockey team.

Washington, D.C. -- The U.S. National Field Hockey team recently named American University head coach Steve Jennings as an assistant coach.

The national team is in the midst of preparing for this month's World Cup qualifying tournament to be held in Amiens, France. Jennings will depart on Sept. 16 for the two-week event.

Jennings began his association with the U.S. Field Hockey earlier this year at their training camp in May. He also traveled to Germany with the team in July as a volunteer coach. This month's tournament marks the final qualifying event for the Field Hockey World Cup, which will be held next year in Perth, Australia. Only seven teams out of 16 in the upcoming tournament will qualify for World Cup play.

A Bethesda, Md., native, Jennings first picked up a field hockey stick in gym class at Walter Johnson High School. At the urging of the school's field hockey coach, he began competing in an area league and later moved to the Netherlands to play in the Dutch First Division Field Hockey League. After the stint in Europe, Jennings returned to the U.S. and began his coaching career at American University in 1993. He acted as an assistant coach for the Eagles until 1996 when he took the head coaching position at Ohio State.

Jennings returned to AU in 1999 as head coach of the field hockey program and enters his third year this season. He presently holds a 18-16 career record at AU as the Eagles begin their inaugural season of competition in the Patriot League this fall.

Patriot League representatives, coaches, and SIDs recently selected AU as the league's preseason favorite, but Jennings insists that his team will not put too much stock in the poll.

"It will be important to put it all on the line...it will require focus, effort, and a smaller margin of error than there has been in the past," he explained.

The Eagles next face Holy Cross this Saturday at 12 p.m. in Worcester, Mass. Their next home match is on Wed., Sept. 19, against Virginia Commonwealth.