Field-Hockey
Favorite athlete: Abby Wambach
Favorite team: Netherlands Men’s Field Hockey Team
Favorite memory competing in sports: When I was hyperventilating on the bus back to school during an asthma attack and my friend took “put a bag over her head” literally.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: When I thought it was a good idea to play defense against my sister and took her shot to the face.
Music on iPod: EVERYTHING. There are so many genres I can’t name one.
Future plans: Go to college for psychology and one day become an art therapist.
Words to live by: “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.”
One goal before turning 30: Go to Ireland
One thing people don’t know about me: I played piano for 10 years.
By Mary Jane Souder
Brianna Buckley had plenty of excuses to walk away from field hockey. As a matter of fact, the Springfield senior gave it serious consideration each year when preseason rolled around.
“Every time the week before preseason I’d say, ‘Maybe it would be easier if I just quit this year,’ and then the first day of preseason would come and I would be totally exhausted by the end of it, and I’d say, ‘Well, that wasn’t so bad. I can make another week of this,’” Buckley said. “That’s how I got through four years of it.”
Buckley’s misgivings weren’t because she didn’t want to go through the rigors of preseason, and her reluctance wasn’t because she didn’t enjoy field hockey, but rather because playing field hockey presented a unique challenge for the senior defender, who battles asthma and is allergic to grass.
Simply being outside is sometimes a battle for Buckley.
“I was born with really bad asthma,” she said. “By the age of five I was told I couldn’t have a Christmas tree anymore – I had to have a fake one.
“Most people as they get older their asthma slowly gets better – mine happened to get worse, and by sophomore year, my asthma peaked, so I would be having asthma attacks every day. It was exercise-induced, it was allergy induced.
“They would cut the grass that day, and I would instantly go down with an asthma attack, and I couldn’t practice. I was getting better and better with my skills, and as soon as I got better with my skills or as soon as the grass was cut, I was out of play.”
Buckley didn’t even have to be outside to trigger an attack.
“Actually, there was one day when they happened to be cutting the grass outside the school windows, and I had an asthma attack sitting in my Spanish class,” she recalled. “I feel like that was an eye-opening moment for my coaches because I wasn’t just one of those kids who was faking it. I was actually struggling with it.
“From that moment, I felt they had a different perspective of what I was going through for the team because I loved the sport. I really wanted to be on the field.”
Buckley may have been out of play but not out of fight and determination to get back on the field.
“I conditioned my lungs over the summer,” she said. “I worked really, really hard, so I would only have an asthma attack per week, and they wouldn’t be as bad, so I wouldn’t be out of play as much.”
That’s not to say it’s been all smooth sailing – it hasn’t been, and Buckley laughs as she recalls a teammate’s response to a particularly painful attack on the bus ride back to school after a game.
“I was so cramped up that one of my teammates put a bag over top of me to try and get me to stop hyperventilating,” Buckley said. “My mother told her to put the bag over my head as an over-exaggeration for giving me a bag to breathe in, so she literally put a bag over my head. I was like, ‘No, no, no.’”
The asthma attacks – which included some that lasted for 45 minutes - were draining.
“It’s like you ran a marathon afterwards,” she said. “You’re so exhausted, so I usually do go home and just sleep it off.”
Some forced Buckley to sit out practices.
“Usually I try to go back out and walk around and watch practice, but I would never be able to start practice again,” she said. “I would help people out who couldn’t understand things.
“I never wanted to go home from practice. I always just wanted to still be there and still be part of it.”
That unwavering commitment was not lost on her coaches.
“She does whatever she can during practices, games, and in the offseason to become a better player,” coach Linda Nixon said. “You can tell she really wants to be there, but there are times she will have to sit out because her allergies can completely take her out of play and cause cramping.
“Despite all of this, she is a leader on our team and has maintained a positive attitude, which she passes on to the other girls.”
Buckley’s leadership ability is underscored by the fact that she was named a captain.
“She is just a delight,” Nixon said. “She really wants to play, and she’s very, very, very helpful with younger kids and anyone who wants help.
“If she can help them, she’s more than willing to do that. Occasionally, she has to back herself off of something we’re doing at practice.”
Buckley was a stabilizing force on defense at sweeper.
“Brianna has had to work hard to become a foundation in our defense,” Nixon said. “She helps direct the defense, and she does oftentimes come out of the defense with the ball and can move up field. She’s a nice, quiet leader. She leads by her effort and her attention to detail.”
Field hockey has been part of Buckley’s life for almost as long as she can remember.
“My sister (Alyssa) was really into field hockey, so I went to camps for field hockey as well when she went to them,” said Buckley, whose mother had played lacrosse. “I started out hating field hockey when I was six or seven years old because it hurt my back playing in campus. Lacrosse was my favorite sport.”
In middle school, Buckley played both hockey and lacrosse.
“Lacrosse was still my favorite, but field hockey was slowly catching up,” she said. “When I got to high school, field hockey actually overruled lacrosse by then.
“My coaches were awesome in field hockey, and I really started loving the sport a lot more than lacrosse.”
The one-on-one play in hockey had special appeal to Buckley.
“If you lose the ball, you can get the ball back right away,” she said. “I love the challenge of getting the ball back. I’m one of those people when they mess up has to fight to cover it up. I don’t like making mistakes.”
Field hockey was more than just a sport for Buckley.
“When I started playing field hockey, I wasn’t the most social person or the most outgoing person, but being on the team kind of helped me branch out more,” she said. “It gave me a place where I could belong.”
Buckley’s selection as captain underscores her value to the team.
“That meant a lot to me because all of those girls have become my family, and just being able to help them and help lead them was really, really honorable,” she said. “I really loved it.”
Off the hockey field, Buckley is equally passionate about art.
“Art is my thing,” she said. “I’m looking to go to college for psychology and art so I can become an art therapist one day.
“My father went to school for art, and I always watched what he did when I was growing up. I would always sit there and I would always draw, I would always design stuff. I eventually took classes in high school. I just loved it.”
In the spring of her sophomore year, Buckley produced a sculpture entitled “Melting City” that won the Teachers’ Award at the PSEA Touch the Future Art Show at Arcadia University. It was a new award given to the student whose work received the most votes from all of the art teachers of the 29 representing schools.
“It was actually a new award just for me,” she said. “It meant a lot to me that they would all push for me to win something because they thought I deserved it.”
Buckley’s inspiration for “Melting City” came at an unexpected time.
“My teacher was demonstrating how to use an extruder tool, and I really loved how all of the tubes that came out of it looked, and I just started playing with it,” she said. “At the time, I also had a broken wrist, so I would use the extruder since it was easier than sculpting something with my bare hands.
“I was just playing with it, and my teacher said, ‘You know you have to make something with these, right?’ I eventually made it, and I was actually so proud of it and not only because it won awards but just because I have never been a person to sit down and do something huge and work over a long period of time on something.
“This is the first thing I followed through on that was so much work. It took me about two weeks worth of just straight work. It was something I was really proud of it because I was really committed to it.”
It’s a commitment she undoubtedly learned on the hockey field where walking away was never an option for the determined Springfield senior.
