Northwestern University Athletics
Olympic Sport Feature: Field Hockey's Alex Quinn
10/16/2008 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 16, 2008
Alexandra Quinn always has enjoyed working with numbers, excelling in those left-side-of-the-brain endeavors like math and science.
It should come as no surprise that the senior from Watertown, Mass., names microeconomics, a class most college students avoid like the library on a Saturday night, as the most interesting course she has taken at Northwestern.
"I had an amazing professor in my micro class and he just changed the way that I looked at life. I started always thinking about costs and benefits and things like that," Quinn said. "He definitely made me realize that economics was the way I wanted to go."
Any economist will tell you that the numbers never lie. In the case of Quinn's field hockey career at Northwestern, the numbers paint a very clear picture about how valuable she's been to the program, starting 53 out of a possible 60 games since her arrival in Evanston as a freshman. With her final season at NU underway, Quinn is focused on trying to solve the formula that will land her and her teammates at the top of the Big Ten Conference.
While Quinn may not have known right away that economics would spark her interest the way it has, she's known for as long as she can remember that field hockey is the game for her. That realization came thanks in no small part to her two older sisters, Lauren and Jaclyn, who played field hockey at Princeton and Northeastern, respectively.
"Field hockey has always been the sport to play in Watertown," Quinn said. "Luckily we grew up just a block away from our town's field hockey field so my sisters and I would have one-on-one tournaments while my dad kept track of who was winning. We would just try new moves on each other and sometimes there were elbows flying so it got pretty competitive."
Quinn, who sees herself as a mixture of Lauren's aggressive playing style and Jaclyn's finesse game, also has a younger brother, Ryan, who runs track at Bates College in Maine.
"We can't watch a round of Jeopardy without all trying to beat each other," Quinn said.
Quinn relied on that competitive drive while scoring 99 goals in her high school career while also lettering in ice hockey and track and field. On top of that, she spent winters playing for the Cape Ann Coalition, a club team that has produced numerous Division I field hockey players and whose team picture Quinn still keeps in her locker.
During the college recruiting process, Quinn considered a number of East coast schools including Princeton, Duke and Northeastern. But when Northwestern head coach Kelly McCollum showed interest, Quinn was intrigued by the idea of moving to Chicago. She also had a prior relationship with McCollum, who recruited Quinn's sisters while an assistant at Northeastern.
To borrow a phrase from the financial world, McCollum saw an immediate return on her investment in Quinn, who started all 19 NU games her freshman season. She scored two goals and had four assists playing both midfield and forward.
"We expected Alex to contribute to the program right away, which can be hard for any freshman, but she handled it so well," McCollum said. "There's no better way to learn than to be out on the field playing and I think it played a big part in the fact that she is reaching a whole new level as a player now."
Quinn earned second-team All-Big Ten honors a year ago while leading the 'Cats in scoring and now has 18 career goals to go along with 13 assists. In the opening weeks of her senior year, she's managed to pick up where she left off in 2007. On Sept. 8, the Big Ten tabbed her as the Offensive Player of the Week after she scored two goals in Northwestern's 3-1 victory over Miami (Ohio) and two more in NU's dominant 8-0 win against Sacred Heart. The eight NU goals were the most the team has scored in a game since 1991.
Throughout her career, Quinn has kept with her memories of sacrifices that her father, Charles, made for her and her siblings while they were in high school. In order to help pay for the girls' field hockey camp expenses, Charles picked up a paper route that he completed every morning before going to his regular job as an engineer. As Quinn points out, he also never missed one of his kids' sporting events.
"My parents have always put us first and it meant a lot to them to send us all to camps to give us a chance to be our best," Quinn said. "I think one of my strengths as a player is my stick-work and I attribute that to the camps my parents sent us to. I just really appreciate all that they've done to help me get where I am."
"I think Alex sets a great example of why you play field hockey," McCollum said. "She loves it, she has fun with it and works hard at it. You can tell that the younger players really admire her passion for the game."
Younger players might also take a cue from Quinn's desire to take advantage of the full Northwestern experience.
"I knew that pursuing a degree like economics at Northwestern while balancing field hockey and internships was going to mean a lot of sacrifice, but I also knew that it would make me happiest in both worlds," she said.
As any college coach or economics professor can testify, student-athletes like Alexandra Quinn are in short supply and high demand.
