For most Division 1 college athletes, their journey to success starts at a young age with a sport they fell in love with, practiced for countless hours at, and eventually devoted their life too.

That wasn’t quite the case for redshirt-sophomore forward Brooke Whipkey of the Quinnipiac Field Hockey team.

Growing up in Charlotte, North Carolina, her first love was actually soccer. In fact, it wasn’t until she suffered an ankle injury that her mother suggested she try a new sport: Field Hockey.

“I started playing field hockey my freshman year of high school. I did a winter, once a week, camp, I got there the first day…and was like wait how do I hold a stick?”

She struggled in the beginning, but It didn’t take long before she took an interest in the new sport.

“It started out as a once a week thing…I went ahead and tried it and I ended up loving it. My passion for field hockey was insane so I decided to switch over one hundred percent”

There was just one problem with her new-found love. In North Carolina, field hockey is not a school sanctioned sport and there was no team at Ardrey Kell, her High School. Whipkey continued to play at her club and set mini goals for herself as her passion for the game grew. 

Recognizing the excitement, she had towards the game, one of the coaches at her club asked her if she would be interested in starting a program at her high school. Whipkey didn’t need any convincing to jump at the opportunity. 

“I think that would be great, I think there’s a ton of kids that would be interested and we have one of the largest schools in the state”

So, the two set out to create a varsity program. Holding clinics and interest meetings to make sure there would be enough girls to build a team. For Whipkey, it was the recruiting that was the most fun.

“It was a really cool process to be a part of, I got to help recruit people. One of the girls in my gym class was a soccer goalie and she was fearless and I thought she would be an amazing field hockey keeper and she ended up being phenomenal so it was really cool to pick up new people”

The program had a humble beginning in 2015, Whipkey’s sophomore year, starting out as just a junior varsity program.

“95 percent of our team had never played field hockey ever, so we started with the basics of just growing the love of the game”

While a strong foundation was in place, there were still many challenges to creating a program that would stand the test of time

“We had to find fields, because we weren’t a school sport we couldn’t actually practice on the school campus we had to go off campus so making sure and finding the logistics for that and the prices in order to make this something we could afford”

Whipkey remembered a practice in their first season when her coach’s car broke down and the girls were stuck with nothing to practice with. They decided to take off their shin pads and use them along with anything they could find as cones to start practice. 

The growth of the program from those days has been quite incredible as in just its second year they received so much interest from girls they fielded both a junior varsity and varsity team. By year three they had over 70 girl’s tryout and had to make cuts for the first time. Whipkey says it was the support she received from her administrators and the community that drove this growth.

“We were very lucky at our school, we have a very supportive community and our principal was on board in recognizing us and helping us to become a part of the school along with our athletic director”

In fact, the program grew so quickly she says her favorite moment came in just her second season when they played one of the best teams in North Carolina and they came away with a win

“We came in with a really strong mentality which is that we’re going in this together and we ended up winning. We got lucky we were able to put one goal in the net and we ended up beating them and it was one of the best moments because it really shows anyone can win any given game”

Even today, Whipkey continues to stay close to the community she was such a big part of not wanting to lose sight of where she came from.

“[I] keep in touch with all of them…When you start something new you become such a part of the community…our team actually helped coach the middle school teams. We would do programs where we would help our middle schools start teams, so within my three years we had two middle schools starting teams”

She stressed the importance of following your passion, no matter what it may be or where it may take you

“I think it’s extremely important for people to take ownership in things that they’re proud of and things they enjoy and if you love a sport, love a hobby, anything and you want it to become a part of your community and a part of your life in a stronger way I think it’s your civic duty to make that happen.”

She may not have been playing field hockey her whole life, but the passion Whipkey had to follow a dream has led her to being a staple of her community and led her to success she never thought was possible.