Best Dancer? Messiest Room? Learn More About The U.S. Women’s Field Hockey Team

What? You didn’t know today was National Field Hockey Day? The rock you are living under is clearly not located on an artificial turf field! If it were, you would know all about the national holiday that honors this exciting team sport — which dates all the way back to the Middle Ages.

But it’s not too late. To celebrate this special day, we had a few members of the U.S. women’s field hockey team, 2012 Olympians Julia Reinprecht and Melissa Gonzalez, and their teammate Stefanie Fee, answer questions about one another.

Even though you might not be marking National Field Hockey Day by getting dirty “playing some field hockey” like Fee, you can still spend it getting the dirt on a few of Team USA’s best.

Most Likely To Break A World Record: Katie O’Donnell

It was during an interview leading up to the 2012 London Olympics when midfielder Gonzalez learned that her teammate, striker Katie O’Donnell, had a talent that was very out of the ordinary. “She jump roped on her butt! It was the most interesting thing I’d seen,” said Gonzalez. “I think it would be so cool if she got a Guinness World Record for something like that.”

Lauren Crandall

Most Modest: Lauren Crandall

When asked, both Gonzalez and defender Reinprecht agreed that team captain Lauren Crandall was the most deserving of this title. Gonzalez said about the “great leader” that even though their captain “has so much to boast about, you would never hear that from her. I respect that so much,” she said. “She lets her actions speak and I think that’s a great quality.”

Reinprecht agreed. “She downplays how good of a player she is, and how much of an asset she is to the team. She doesn’t realize what a force she is for our team, and how much we all respect her.”

Most Likely To Be Caught Sleeping: Kelsey Kolojejchick

All three teammates agreed that striker Kelsey Kolojejchick likes her naps — so much so that Gonzalez didn’t hesitate when asked who should get the title. “Easy answer. She can nap anywhere, under any circumstances and sleep for a very long time,” she said. “I was on a bus ride with her from Toronto to Pennsylvania — the bus broke down — and she did not even wake up. She is literally a bear in hibernation!”

Best Dancer: Stefanie Fee

Even though both her teammates gave her the title of best dancer, defender Stefanie Fee had no problem agreeing with them: “I would say I am the best dancer,” she said. “People wouldn’t think I was a good dancer because I’m more quiet and reserved, but once the music turns on, you just never know what I’m going to do.”

Gonzalez summed it up by saying, “she’s got some moves and she’s not afraid to show them. You name it, she can probably do it, and she can break a move to pretty much anything,” she said.

Shiest: Jill Witmer

Jill Witmer

After Reinprecht named Jill Witmer as “the shiest one on the team,” Gonzalez had to agree. “I can see it,” she said about the striker. “But I’ve just harassed her long enough that she’s opened up to me where she would just tell me to be quiet.”

In public settings, Gonzalez said her teammate “doesn’t like speaking out” and if someone like their coach calls on her, “she’ll turn a beet red color.” Luckily, she said, when it comes to herself: “I’m Spanish, so you can’t see that shade on my skin!”

Most Musical: Jill Witmer

“I think the person who sings the most on the team is Jill Witmer,” Reinprecht said, and she knows this is surprising considering Witmer is also one of the shiest. But, she said, “I wouldn’t call her the best singer. More like the one most likely to be heard singing.”

Gonzalez — having roomed with Witmer in the past — said her former roommate “thinks she’s a mix of Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood, but really she sounds like Bert and Ernie. She believes she’s good, which makes me want to believe she’s good. But she is definitely not the most musical person.”

This title seemed to come after a unanimous vote — even Gonzalez agreed with the label. “Regretfully, I have to say myself on this one,” she said. “I might have some sort of ADD — even though I’ve never been diagnosed.”

Reinprecht classified as her teammate as someone who “can be known to let her clothes wander outside of her suitcase in hotel rooms quite a bit.” But Gonzalez just chalked it up to being “very scattered. I’ll leave something for days and then just forget I put it there,” she said. “It all works out in the end and I eventually clean it up. But it just takes me a little longer than most to get around to it.”