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26 CAVALIER CORNER BY MELISSA DUDEK I t takes a lot of courage to jump into a new team for one year," UVA head coach Michele Madison said. Virginia field hockey defender Lind- say Dickinson showed that courage when she arrived on Grounds in August to begin her two-year graduate program at the Bat- ten School of Leadership and Public Policy. A four-year letter winner at Connecticut and a veteran of USA Field Hockey's junior national teams, she brought experience and talent to the Cav- aliers' back line that had just lost not one but two All-Americans. "When I met her, I knew it was a fit, even before discovering Lindsay's real gifts, which are her simplicity fueled by great instincts backed with immedi- ate action," Madison noted. "When she arrived on Grounds, Lindsay attended the first years' meeting with all the new players and brought immediate respect and confidence to the class. Starting over is exciting yet vulnerable. "She jumped in with both feet and sur- rendered for the good of the team." Dickinson took advantage of her bonus COVID year to enter the transfer portal after finishing her fourth-year season at UConn. "I knew from the start that I wanted to pursue a school that had a great master's program," Dickinson said. "I knew I wanted to do public policy and not a lot of schools actually have public policy programs, so that narrowed it down really quickly. "I wanted a good balance of academics and athletics for my grad year. I still wanted to play field hockey competitively for my last season. And UVA was on my radar right away." The master's in public policy was a per- fect fit with her bachelor's degree in political science and English. "I think it gives me the quantitative base they didn't necessarily have in my undergrad major that I knew would definitely prepare me for a job," she said. "And UVA's public policy program is really special in the sense that it also has a leadership component." The field hockey piece was an equally perfect fit. She wasn't coming in as a stranger on the team. She had played with fourth-year Adele Iacobucci in high school. She and fifth-year Annie McDonough had been teammates on USA Field Hockey teams throughout the years. Virginia's asso- ciate head coach Ole Keusgen had coached one of the youth national teams. As someone who had been playing field hockey since the second grade, she was happy to find a way to continue competing at a high level. "Even before COVID started, I wanted to continue playing field hockey after my four years," Dickinson said. "My initial thought at that time was to try to play overseas for a year. Once the COVID year was a possibility, I thought, 'Why wouldn't I want to play college hockey for one more year?' I wanted to use this opportunity to further my education be- cause field hockey has to end at some point. "I wanted to prepare myself for a profes- sional career as much as possible." Dickinson had a distinguished career at UConn where she earned all-region and All-BIG EAST honors her senior season. She has also traveled the globe representing her country as a member of USA Field Hockey's junior national teams. Those experiences were highlighted by earning a bronze medal at the U22 Pan American Championships in Santiago, Chile, in August 2021. Not only did she medal, but the third-place finish was also good enough to help the U.S. Junior National Team qualify for the Junior Hockey World Cup in Potchefstroom, South Africa, in April 2022. "Chile was beautiful, but it was very lim- ited and what we were able to see because it was still in the middle of the pandemic, and Chile's COVID restrictions at that time were tight," Dickinson said. "South Africa was exciting because it was something that we were looking forward to for so long. It was initially supposed to be in the fall, and then it got canceled with the emergence of the new variant. "Being able to go and compete and finally be there was incred- ible, especially playing against some teams we never would have ever played against. We got to play the Dutch team, who were insanely talented. Even though we lost a game, it was just incredible to have that experience of playing against girls at that level at that talent. We were there for close to three weeks. So being able to spend that amount of time with the girls was really cool." Dickinson has been invited to the U.S. Women's Development Team Selection Camp this winter, the next step up from the junior national teams, but now Dickinson hasn't yet decided whether she will continue playing. "I have to see how that will balance with the rest of my master's program," Dickinson said. "It is pretty intensive, and we have a mandatory internship component over the summer that is a full 10-week span. I really don't want to let it go, but I think I'm going to reach a point where I have to see how much I can realistically balance both." If this is her last run, she had one thing that she wanted to be sure to say. "I just would like to say thank you to the Virginia coaching staff for giving me this op- portunity. It has been so awesome." " PERFECT FIT PERFECT FIT Lindsay Dickinson Is Making The Most Of Her Graduate Transfer, Both On The Field And In The Classroom " I wanted to use this opportunity to further my education because field hockey has to end at some point. I wanted to prepare myself for a professional career as much as possible." DICKINSON Dickinson previously earned all-region and All-BIG EAST honors at UConn and was a member of USA Field Hockey's junior na- tional teams. She is now pursuing a master's degree in public policy at Virginia. (Photo courtesy UVA)