When the average student thinks about field hockey, he or she probably envisions a women’s sport that is usually played in skirts.

While there is clearly more to the sport than that, the perception in this part of the country that field hockey is a women’s sport is justifiable. There are no men’s varsity field hockey teams sanctioned by the NCAA, and no public high school in the state of Maryland has an all-boys varsity field hockey team.

“I don’t know why. I wish I knew,” freshman Andrew Zayac said. “I guess it’s a cultural thing.”

Zayac and fellow freshman Jon Geerts are the two male members of this university’s coed club field hockey team. The club won the National Field Hockey League Championship with a 1-0 victory against James Madison in the championship game Nov. 12 in Harrisonburg, Va. It was the Terps’ sixth championship since the league was founded in 1997, and its first since 2003.

Geerts scored the only goal of the championship game, while Zayac, a goalkeeper, played half the game in the cage for the Terps.

Zayac and Geerts have been playing field hockey for most of their lives, and both have seen firsthand that men play field hockey in world-class competitions as well.

For Zayac, club field hockey at this university was something to do for fun whenever he could fit it into his busy class schedule.

“I’m an engineering major,” he said. “I just try to play as much as I can.”

Zayac began playing field hockey when he was in fourth grade, when a team was formed at his private elementary school in Montgomery County. He made the U.S. Under-16 national team when he was 11 and has been a part of the program ever since. Zayac is currently a member of the Under-18, Under-21 and U.S. national squads, and he has played in events in California, Canada, Chile, Cuba, Holland and Germany.

“Nothing is better than going to another country, stepping on the field with your USA jersey on you,” Zayac said. “The people don’t see you … they see the USA. That’s just a great feeling.”

If Geerts were a U.S. citizen, he would likely be Zayac’s teammate on the national level as well. Geerts began playing field hockey competitively in his native Belgium when he was five. He played on the Belgian junior national team, and the club team for which he played until he moved to the U.S. as a high-school sophomore won the Belgian National Championship for the 12- to 14-year-old age group.

“Of course soccer is the biggest sport in Europe, but field hockey is probably second or third,” Geerts said. “More guys play it in Europe than girls.”

When Geerts tried out to play for his high school outside Philadelphia during his junior year, he experienced the tension of a male trying to play what is seen in the United States as a female sport.

“There were a lot of people from other schools who said it wasn’t safe,” Geerts said.

Geerts was not allowed to play as a junior, and though he made the team his senior year, he received limited playing time.

No such discrimination occurs at the university club level, where every team the Terps played this season had male players. The only league rule limiting males is that only two male field players can play at the same time.

“It’s just about getting used to them,” club field hockey president Danielle Martyn said. “I think I speak for most of the team when I say I had no problem playing with Jon or any other guy for that matter.”

The major difference between men’s field hockey and women’s field hockey is the speed of the game. Top-class male players tend to be faster than the top female players.

However, both Geerts and Martyn agreed that one player cannot win a field hockey game by himself or herself, and that men don’t dominate the competition or pose a safety risk.

“All the men we play with and against are smart hockey players,” Martyn said. “No one player can do it alone whether they’re male or female.”

Geerts said experienced male players know how to play within a system and know that trying to be too physical isn’t effective.

While men’s field hockey is far from mainstream on the East Coast, there are still some men’s club teams in the region. Geerts played for a team based in New York and is currently a member of a men’s team based in Washington.

Men’s field hockey is more popular on the West Coast, where the national team is based – Southern California – and somewhere most of the national team’s talent is drawn.

Both Zayac and Geerts plan to return to the club team next year, as the Terps hope to defend their title.

“Wherever I can play I try to play,” Geerts said. “It doesn’t really matter who I play with.”

Contact reporter Greg Schimmel at sports@dbk.umd.edu.