The Strange Case of Ryleigh Heck

The case of Ryleigh Heck is a sports story we’ve seen countless times: a younger sibling in a house full of sports prodigies, a hard-nut parent as a coach drilling a child in a sport they excelled at. There comes a realization that someone like Heck arriving at where she is now at the University of North Carolina was far from improbable, but what makes her story so special is we’re two chapters in, and she’s almost completed it all.

Robert Stevenson explores the theme of duality in his book Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, teaching that within the cognition of every human being exists a side of light and dark to balance itself. Such a phenomenon can be superimposed onto Heck. Her demeanour is without fault as she enters the interview, and a big smile adorns her face. Given her level of play, she’s carried out many interviews since her freshman season as part of the field hockey team last year, but an innocent nervousness still emits from her.

A glance at the field hockey training session spells out an idea. Waves of heat smack upon the Karen Shelton Stadium as the team plays out a drill of attrition: three teams play a mock game covering half the pitch, score one you stay in, concede you’re out. Though from our vantage, it was hard to spot the 12 on Heck’s training jersey, she was recognizable in another way.

Skill.

Clack, clack, buzz; another six minutes are added to the training clock.

Almost everyone on the team is tomato-red from exhaustion, the sound of hockey sticks colliding sounds like a jostle between two elephants.

In a group coming off the back of two national NCAA championships, it was fairly easy to spot the crème de la crème. Heck wanders the field with a certain suave and toughness that is hard to miss – the harshness her teammates treated her with was the ultimate calling of respect – blonde-trimmed hairs on her head stand up like a lion’s mane, and her face, now possibly red due to the sun, possibly due to searing anger at her coverage.

“Most of the time, Ryleigh is very level-headed; she’s a very happy girl off the field,” said Charly Bruder, teammate, friend, and apprentice of Heck.

“On the field, though, one thing ticks her off, and it really ticks off; she gets in her head,” Bruder chuckles under her breath as to remember a time she locked horns with the prodigy from New Jersey.

Such temperament, mussed with the soft visage of a girl whose friends describe as the “life of the party,” is most likely hereditary, judging from Heck’s description of her childhood.

In her backyard in her hometown of Ocean City, N.J., Heck was a test subject for her two older brothers who dressed her in football pads. Tackle football in the yard would last for hours, with Heck getting destroyed regularly, she joked. “I was seven, eight years old, and my brothers were bigger, stronger obviously, and I’d get knocked down but be straight back up,” said Heck. That competitive edge, the need to not bow out, seems synonymous with the family name.

Both of Heck’s parents played at the collegiate level, her father football, and her mum hockey and lacrosse at James Madison University. Serving inspiration, Heck wanted to do the same thing.

“My goal when I was little was to play field hockey and Lacrosse at JMU like my mom. I wanted to do what she did.”

Heck’s mother, Kerry, took it as a sign of respect and decided to train Heck and older sister Kara herself, doing so in a manner best described as fairly harsh.

Mistakes were announced to the world, and shouting matches were unsurprisingly common. Heck was forged in a crucible of passion and attrition.

Training sessions commenced when Heck was 3 years old, starting young is probably the best way to build the best player in college field hockey.

“I was tiny,” said Heck, small to her brothers and small to her older sister Kara, who was two years her senior. Kerry put Heck in an older division alongside her sister to mould her and possibly also to not drive to two games every weekend.

“At first, I was a little scared; you could tell I didn’t belong. I was so little.”

The parallels between the torture chamber Heck’s brothers had her in in the yard and her early years on the field hockey pitch, you’d think at this point to cut the little girl some slack, you’d want as the reader to feel sorry for her, yet Heck stands up and goes right back out there.

October 7th, 2022, was a day for the Heck household. Boston College faced off against UNC at home, falling 4-3 to the No. 1 ranked Tar Heels. Kara, now a junior at Boston College, scored two goals that day but was toppled by younger sister Ryleigh Heck as the freshman scored one in gloating fashion.

“My sister knows how to get under my skin,” Heck says. “Kara isn’t the nicest girl on the field. All sisters fight, and if the audience were unaware these two were related, you’d be thinking, ‘Oh God’!”

The duality of Heck is a testament to her success; the smiles and jolly cadence are quickly replaced with an unwavering determination as soon as she steps on the field. It’s how she's been taught, and it's working.

Heck, now in her sophomore year, has played an instrumental part in two national championships for the Tar Heels.

Yet, Heck arrived on campus, moving in with her family to the Avery dorm, not totally in love with the sport. “Up until COVID, I was deciding between basketball, lacrosse, and hockey, and just ended up with it (hockey) because it was the sport I was best at,” Heck said.

“Just coming to college my freshman year and experiencing being in a team and family like this, I just don’t ever want to stop.”

Her room in Avery overlooked the Karen Shelton Stadium; its emerald sheen, coupled with the Heck family’s competitive nature, forced her onto the pitch in the dead of the morning.

Before class starts at 9 a.m., Heck finds herself dribbling endlessly through a row of cones she set down herself. She’s now her own coach, and students have begun to knock at her door seeking the wise words of the Division 1 National Player of the Year.

“It’s clear now that Ryleigh’s one of the best players in the country,” said Bruder. “It's admirable to watch and play with; you just never know what she’s going to do.”

Bruder, a freshman at the time of speaking, is behind Heck in the pecking order of midfielders. It’s difficult joining a team off the back of a national championship; it’s even more so when your position is taken up by Ryleigh Heck.

“She (Ryleigh) took me under her wing. Every morning we’d go out to the field together and just be a major mentor for me,” said Bruder.

Leadership, Heck has always been the smallest, a cub forced to keep up with a pack of lions. Now, she leads the pride. Whether that be her brothers in the yard or her sister running rings around her on the pitch, it was finally time for Heck to take the next step up and be the one to lead the charge, especially with the transition of Coach Erin Matson exchanging a seat in the changing room for a head coach's office.

"Ryleigh’s improved a ton with that leadership teammate side of things," said Coach Matson, the 23-year-old in her first year of coaching who led the Tar Heels to a national championship.

"I see a lot of myself in Ryleigh, and her shift to taking over this team has been gradual. You can see how the girls respect her play and talent, and it allows her to put the team on her back at times."

There have been many occasions where Heck has done just that – none more than the national championship game against Northwestern.

Set here at the very stadium Heck wakes up to train at 8 a.m., the game was a dogged affair. Bruder, much improved from the private lessons from Heck, scored the opener in the tie, but it still fell to a penalty shootout.

With each Carolina miss, with each Carolina score, tensions entered a palpable zone. Heck waited in arms with her teammates, hoping their goal would secure the win but knowing that a step into the crucible would be nothing to her.

With sudden death now upon the Tar Heels, Heck stood up to the plate.

Coach Matson looked at her star player and said, "Go win us a championship."

Without response and just a slight nod of the head, Heck made her way to the starting spot.

"I knew the keeper on Northwestern (Annabel Skubisz), we played and trained together on the USA Olympic team track," Heck said.

"I always do a spin move for my penalty shootouts, and I've practised it against her; she knew what I was going to do."

The decision now rests in her mind: do you change who you are, or do you stick to your guns?

Heck began her dribble, and the crowd silenced as she drove toward the goal. She dribbled the ball to her left and stuck with her patented spin move.

A roar burgeoned as Ryleigh Heck won the NCAA championship.

"A lot of people would crumble under the pressure in a situation like that," said teammate Kiersten Thomassey.

"Ryleigh was so calm and collected; I’m so proud that she’s been able to achieve so much in just two years."

The story has just begun, and Heck has already accomplished all you can in college field hockey. Fortunately, another milestone is already on her mind.

Part of the US Olympic preliminary squad, Heck now travels to Charlotte, NC, where the team practices to see if she can nail a spot for the final roster.

On that team, a familiar face Coach Matson awaits her.

"I pulled her aside and told her I’d be joining the US team again, and I was worried she'd find it awkward playing with her coach," Coach Matson joked.

"She said no problem; there’s no stress; we’ve already been teammates."

The Matson-Heck partnership has already dominated college; and now enters the world stage. Whether it's Paris 2024 or LA 2028, expect Ryleigh Heck to take over the airwaves once again.

END