- Publish date:
CONSTANCE M. K. APPLEBEE
Possibly the oldest game played with stick and ball is field hockey, a game well known to the ancient Greeks but introduced here only 57 years ago by the deceptively gentle-looking old lady shown above with some young players. Field hockey is now taught at 2,000 schools and played by 100,000 women, and this healthy state is due in large part to Miss Applebee's temperament: "The Apple" is a fast-charging, acid-tongued and completely tireless old pro who has dominated the American game ever since she introduced it during a women's physical education course at the Harvard summer school in 1901.
Over the past 50 years Miss Applebee's awe-inspiring instructions ("Now run, you dumb things!") have rung over the playing fields of Wellesley, Smith, Mount Holyoke and Bryn Mawr, wherever, in fact, the game needed encouragement. Her girls never forget her. A Philadelphia matron with three grown sons reports an occasional nightmare in which she stands rooted to the field with The Apple's caustic voice ringing in her ears. Now in her 80s, Miss Applebee still conducts the famous fall sessions at her Mt. Pocono Hockey Camp and is looking forward keenly to 1963 when teams from 20 countries, all members of the international association, will gather at Baltimore's Goucher College for the greatest exhibition of women's hockey ever seen in the U.S.
PHOTO
LEE BALTERMAN
