The independent student newspaper of Northeastern University

The Huntington News

The independent student newspaper of Northeastern University

The Huntington News

The independent student newspaper of Northeastern University

The Huntington News

Senior Spotlight: Eckhoff takes leadership

By Jewel Della Valle

Sarah Eckhoff isn’t any typical college athlete. When she’s not playing field hockey, she spends her time working at a girl’s orphanage in Thailand and helping AIDS patients in Uganda and Rwanda.

The midfielder has been playing field hockey since she was 6 years old, but said now it’s time to hang up her cleats in favor of working in international public health or international development.

Eckhoff returned from a three-month journey to Thailand last Wednesday, having spent the last month and a half working at an HIV/AIDS hospice in a Buddhist Temple, after working at a girl’s orphanage

“It was pretty intense but very rewarding in other ways,” she said.

She’s busy making her mark on the world but she’s also left a lasting impression on the field hockey field.

She began her collegiate career in 2003, playing in 18 games and starting 10. She was named to the America East All-Rookie team and had her first stint on the National Field Hockey Coaches Association’s (NFHCA) Academic squad.

Her sophomore year she started all 22 of the Huskies’ games and scored the game-winning penalty stroke against previously undefeated Connecticut, which she said is one of her favorite memories of playing at Northeastern.

“We went down to Connecticut and it’s probably one of my least favorite fields in all of the United States, but just every time we go down there it’s freezing and the wind is ridiculous,” she said. “But we went down there

More to Discover