Warren Returns to Field After Setback

Until coming in as a substitute on Saturday against Dartmouth, field hockey captain KJ Warren hadn’t played in a game since the Bush Administration.

Her last appearance came on Nov. 8, 2008, four days after Obama was elected president.

Warren, who played in 16 of the team’s 17 games that year, has been plagued by injury for the last two seasons. According to senior forward Chloe Keating, Warren underwent extensive surgery around her knee at the beginning of her junior year. Warren faced a number of setbacks, the most serious was a second surgery last March.

Even with an injury, the senior was still named co-captain this year.

“Most of my experience with KJ was her helping everyone get through the hard practices [and] helping the team realize what’s important, what things need to get done, [and] how to hold each other accountable on and off the field,” says sophomore Kim Goh, who until last Saturday had never seen Warren in action.

Warren, one of just three seniors on the team, actively had a role in leading the team this year. Despite not being able to play, she has travelled with the team throughout the course of her stint off the field.

As an underclassman, she was given relatively limited playing time, starting just seven games in the two-season stretch.

But as the captain, Warren has been an integral part of maintaining the team’s cohesion even though the team has been hit with a number of injuries and has struggled on the field this year.

“Injuries have been an issue for our team in general, and [it’s nice] having a captain who could really show that you are definitely more to the team than what you bring with a stick in your hand. You bring your whole self to the team everyday—that’s her philosophy and what she taught all of us,” Goh says.

Throughout the season, it wasn’t ever clear when—or if—Warren would be able to return. Her recovery is hardly complete, and last weekend’s appearance limited the field hockey captain to just 11 minutes of play in the second-to-last game of her college career.

“I think everyone on the team was just so excited to have her back, and everyone had watched her recovery and her resilience through the last two years, so it was nice see some of that materialize into actually playing the game on Saturday,” Keating says. “I think the whole group was just really uplifted by her coming back.”

Warren has been able to stay active in team leadership partly because of the team’s youth.  Fourteen of the team’s 20 players are underclassmen—including eight freshmen—and the team has grown from its 16-player roster last year.

“[She’s] a teammate you look up to for so long as a leader and a team player, and to actually get to experience it on the field, everything sort of falls into place,” Goh says. “You can see the fruits of all of that energy and all of that spirit come into play as a competitor, and that’s something really special.”

This Saturday’s game, at home against Columbia, is the season’s final game. Warren last played a home game 728 days ago.

While an Ivy title may be out of reach for the Harvard field hockey team, the Crimson co-captain will get one more chance to play at Jordan Field before graduating.

“This entire year, whether or not she would get back was up in the air,” Keating says. “It was nice to see her get out there, at least for a little.”

Goh echoed the same sentiment.

“She has been in rehab for years, and has had a number of injuries [and] several surgeries, but despite not playing for an entire season plus, she never questioned that she needed to do everything in her power to get better,” Goh says. “Ultimately, I’m thrilled that it’s paid off for her to be able to play in these last two games.”

“It speaks to her incredible optimism and commitment to the team that she was willing to put in every ounce of effort that she could to get physically better,” she adds.

—Staff writer E. Benjamin Samuels can be reached at samuels@college.harvard.edu.