Last night, the Delmarva Sports Network, a digital sports channel which is available on most of the state’s cable TV systems, broadcast a unique story.
For the first time that I can recall, a sports network has assembled and broadcast a documentary on a scholastic field hockey coach. The coach is V. Susan Pusey, who coached at Pocomoke (Md.) for three decades and sent many an athlete to Division I programs.
Pusey, who guided the Warriors to more than a dozen state championships, died suddenly in July 2015. This coming winter, she will be entering the National Field Hockey Coaches’ Association Hall of Fame.
But for all of the acclaim for her career, this documentary is a first. The 30-minute special, “Faith, Family, Field Hockey: The Legacy of Coach Susan Pusey,” is narrated by one of her former players, Michelle Roberts. Roberts, who played four years at Michigan, now works as a sports anchor at DSN.
Roberts interviewed family as well as star players such as Brandi Castaneda, the current coach at Pocomoke. The special intersperses interviews as well as archival footage, showing state championship triumphs as well as the one season the team went unscored upon, one of only about a dozen teams to have ever achieved this feat.
Another feat that is touched on is the Warriors’ eight-year run as state champions between 2003 and 2010. Only dynasties like Voorhees Eastern (N.J.), Shrub Oak Lakeland (N.Y.), Bethesda-Chevy Chase (Md.), Watertown (Mass.), and the current Delmar (Del.) program — coached by her niece Jodi Hollamon — have won as many consecutive state titles.
It’s a great paean to a legend. And I’d like to see more field hockey documentaries on personalities such as Nancy Williams and Dorotha Edwards and Beth Anders and Constance Applebee.
How about it, ESPN?
