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Julie Chu (Harvard '06) |
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Bio
 What was your experience in youth athletics? Were there opportunities available to you?
I figure skated initially for two months and then I made the quick transition right over to hockey and I just played with the boys growing up for two or three years. There weren’t a lot of girl’s teams in Connecticut. There was the Connecticut Polar Bears but I wasn’t aware of it. I just played with the boys and it was actually an incredible experience for me because they were really welcoming and I got great coaching and had some great teammates that were really accepting of me. So I started with them and then as I got older I switched over to the girls team. I started with the Connecticut Stars and then I went to the Connecticut Polar Bears. They were actually a really strong team and that was a key to being able to be exposed to other women’s hockey players from across the country but also to the different college coaches that were starting to recruit for their teams at the Polar Bear level.
Did you play other sports besides ice hockey?
Well, soccer was my first sport because growing up in Fairfield, Connecticut, soccer is a pretty big sport there. I grew up playing little tikes chasing around the same ball for a while. I just played up through high school, until I went to the women's ice hockey national team. I loved that; it was a great experience for me. Soccer was one of the sports that was fun to play but at the same time, hockey for me— that was the sport. When it came time to the summer and I thought about going to soccer camps, I was kind of like “uh, no thanks.” But when I thought about hockey camp I was like, “Yes!” I couldn’t get enough of it. In middle school I also played basketball and in high school I played softball.
What obstacles still stand to young women who want to participate in athletics?
From when Title IX came into effect until now there have been tremendous strides. I think it’s day and night. But I think there are still a lot of times where girls will typically just play the stereotypical sports. Maybe softball? Maybe soccer? But they won’t branch out as much into hockey, baseball, and what not. I think as time progresses and as more people are promoting being active as kids, from boys and girls, I think that’s really important and I think that’s only going to show more growth in girls athletics at a young age and then from there hopefully growth into older stages.
What has athletics done for young girls that choose to participate?
Well, I think at a young age it builds confidence right off the bat. I think you’re exposed to a lot of adversity at a young age. Adversity in a good way though, it comes down to when you make a mistake. It’s a simple mistake and you have to learn how to accept the mistake and grow from that as opposed to always being afraid to make mistakes. I think that’s really important in the coaching aspect of young girls getting involved in athletics. I think it’s really important for the coach to always build the confidence and build the character of the girls. If not, and they don’t do that, and they are always putting them down or always making them worry about what they’re doing out there then that’s when you see the dropout rate a lot quicker in athletics. For me I think it just helps build camaraderie. Especially if you’re on a team sport, it allows you to learn how to trust other players. I think those are some key aspects.
What do you see in the future for women's athletics, will it continue to expand?
First, the professional aspect, I think we are still a long ways off there. As far as women’s soccer you can see how they sort of did well for a few years and then faded off a bit. Looking at that, women’s soccer is huge in the United States as compared to women’s ice hockey. I think hockey still lacks participants. A lot of that is just that it’s a lot easier to accommodate soccer players and playing in the field and having practice, as opposed to the expenses of hockey and ice time and availability of the rinks around the area. I think for me, as far as professional women’s hockey, I think we are still a ways off because I think it’s a pretty new sport as well. In fact, we only had the first national team in 1990. So it’s been 15 years and that’s a good amount of growth but at the same time, I think the player pool needs to be a lot bigger before we can jump into forming a full fledged professional league. I think in the future we will be able to build a strong enough player pool to have maybe at the start six to eight teams of a high enough caliber that they will bring interesting competition to each other and make sure that the best players are on the ice playing against each other and not just anyone that we can get to fill in some spots.
With that, I think there needs to be good timing. There needs to be more development at a younger age and I think that’s already starting. You can see younger players, younger girls starting to play at three or four years old now. Starting on a team at six or seven, as opposed to a lot of us who started when we were eight, ten, 13. I think that is a start and then try to get some good coaching there at the younger ages.
Would you ever consider going into coaching?
Yes, definitely. I do a lot of coaching in the summers and it’s really rewarding. I feel that it’s one of those experiences that makes you a better player in a way as well because you have to focus on, “Ok, what are the components to being a good skater?” “How do I break it down and convey it to other people?” So, it not only makes evaluate your own skating so that you can understand how you function but also how you can help other people do it as well. In the future, I’d love to coach at some level, I’m not sure if it’s going to be college, high school, or just like a little kids team but I would definitely look into that.
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