What it Takes
Anyone who knows Sarah Drake well knows that she has a fiery personality and is one of the fiercest competitors you will ever meet. Anyone who knows Drake also knows that she hates to lose.
Any professional athlete can tell you what it takes to be good. They will tell you it takes talent, hard work, dedication. But the great ones have something more. They have a love for their game; an intense passion that shows when they play. That’s what it takes to be great.
Sarah Drake has more passion in her small five-foot, one-inch frame than the entire Michigan football team has for their sport (just ask Appalachian State).
That passion is what it takes to win.
Drake’s hatred of losing is apparent when you talk to her, especially argue with her. It is also apparent when she is learning something new in class that she just cannot seem to grasp. Not understanding something is losing, and that is not okay. However, Drake’s hate for losing is most obvious when she plays field hockey.
Drake is a junior, a starter on the Pioneer field hockey team. She won MVP honors of the upper JV team her freshmen year, and has been a starter on the state - champion varsity team since she was a sophomore. But Drake isn’t just playing field hockey during the season, of course.
Drake is one of many girls around the country, ages 14 to 19 that participate in a program called “Futures” in the off - season that is run by U.S.A. field hockey. There are Futures camps called “checkpoints” all over the regions of the United States. At these checkpoints, college players from the region train younger players who made the cut, making them faster, stronger, better.
This summer, Drake plowed through the regional tournament and easily made the cut to move on to nationals, which was held in virginia beach this year. Drake was one of sixty girls from the midwest to make the cut, and one of only three to make it from Michigan. So what makes Drake so good?
“Field vision, awareness, speed, all those things are important,” says Drake. “But ball control might be the most important. You can be the fastest girl in the world, but if you can’t receive a pass well, you’ll never get a shot on goal.”
Drake hones her skills individually with the lower-JV coach from Pioneer, Mary Fox. “Sarah is much lower to the ground than most players, which helps in field hockey. She is strong over the ball, and very skilled,” says Fox, adding, “Her want to get better and her incredible potential makes her exciting to work with.”
Most of the girls in the Futures program have many or all of the same skills that Drake has. What most of them don’t have is Drake’s competitive drive and unbreakable discipline.
“I’m really hard on myself,” Drake explains. “If I have a bad game, or even practice, it will bother me for a long time.”
Having a year of experience on Pioneer’s varsity already as a junior, Drake has developed a leadership role on the team. If she thinks her teammates are not matching her intensity, she will let them know.
“I lead by telling people what they’re doing wrong because I know what I’m talking about,” Drake says, then adds, “but I listen well too, I like people telling me what I’m doing wrong. I take criticism to heart and use it to get better.”
It is Drake’s ability to take criticism combined with her will to win and stubborn intolerance of losing that has carried her through so much success at such a young age. Drake, who was only able to play in two games at the national tournament in Virginia Beach, was one of the very select few to move on from nationals to the junior olympic team.
Oh, you thought that was it?
At age 16 and with two more years of high school field hockey to play, Drake has already put together an exceedingly impressive resume for colleges to fight over. In fact, she already has offers from Michigan and Michigan State to play field hockey, and those won’t be the last two schools she hears from.
“She is getting average attention right now, but she hasn’t even played her junior year yet,” says Fox. “She will be a big recruit.”
Whether it’s in high school or in college you can bet this won’t be the last time you hear about Sarah Drake. Just take a look at the sports section of the Ann Arbor News every once in a while. The bottom line is, Sarah Drake is one of the best young field hockey players in the country, and is also one of the finest athletes CHS has ever produced. She is at the top of the game, and is only going to get better.
Filed on 09/25/2007