When Northwestern’s Ilse Tromp buried the double-overtime winner past Princeton to clinch back-to-back national championships, she joined one of the deepest championship traditions in women’s college sports. And then she went back to work.
That’s field hockey. Elite athletes, elite competition, elite work ethic — all of it sustained by athletes who show up every day because they love the game.
This is the story of those athletes. And it’s exactly why RallyFuel exists.
These Athletes Are Built Different
Field hockey is one of the most physically demanding sports in college athletics. Sprint-stop-sprint for sixty minutes. Stick skills that take a decade to master. Tactical awareness that rivals soccer. The talent pipeline runs deep — straight from American high schools, European club programs, and national team development systems into NCAA rosters every fall.
The athletes playing it are ballers. Full stop.
The 2026 USA Women’s National Team roster heading to the FIH Nations Cup in Auckland is stacked with current and former collegians — Phia Gladieux from Penn State, Ashley Hoffman, Ryleigh Heck, Beth Yeager. These are athletes representing their country on the international stage while still managing classes, practice, travel, and competition at the highest level of college sport. That’s not a sidebar story. That’s elite.
And these athletes have built real NIL careers — boutique brand deals, regional partnerships, community-driven platforms. The path looks different from sport to sport, but the work is just as real and the wins are just as legitimate.
What’s been missing is a platform built specifically for how field hockey players actually win. That’s RallyFuel.
What Actually Works for Field Hockey NIL
Talk to anyone who’s made NIL work in field hockey and the same word keeps coming up: effort.
Kerrianne McClay, the Ball State field hockey player who literally wrote her master’s thesis on this, found that the difference between athletes who cash in and athletes who don’t isn’t the name on the jersey. It isn’t the conference. It isn’t the sport. It’s whether you show up. She called her approach “NIL cold calling” — emailing brands she actually used, every single month, with a template she’d refined.
Penn State’s Phia Gladieux did the same thing. She reached out to Longstreth herself the moment NIL was approved. One week later, she was a TK brand ambassador.
Quinnipiac’s Katie Shanahan — nicknamed “6 a.m. Shanahan” by her marketing agent — racked up ten NIL deals in six months as a freshman, including partnerships with Adidas, Liquid I.V., and Gillette Venus. She didn’t wait for opportunity. She built it.
The lesson is clear: in field hockey, you don’t get drafted into NIL. You build it.
But here’s the thing — most players don’t have a marketing agent. Most don’t have time between practice, class, travel, and competition to cold-email fifty brands a month. That’s where fans come in.
Fans Are the Missing Piece
This is the part of college sports nobody’s built for yet. Until now.
RallyFuel is the platform that lets fans back the athletes they care about. Find your school. Find your athlete. Fuel them. Your Fuel sits with a licensed payment processor until conditions are met, and you’re protected by an automatic refund policy: if the athlete picks a different school during the Conditional Period, if that period expires without an NIL Agreement, if the athlete becomes ineligible, or if deliverables aren’t performed, the refund kicks in.
That’s what “No Risk. Real Impact.” actually means.
Right now on the platform, fans are backing field hockey players, gymnasts, soccer players, track athletes — the full universe of college sport. The RallyFuel Battleground feature even lets fans rally behind an uncommitted recruit, with verified NIL value stacking up across competing schools in real time. Fans aren’t just spectators anymore. They’re part of the program.
Why This Matters for Field Hockey
Field hockey is one of the most competitive women’s sports in college athletics. Northwestern just won its third national title in five years. North Carolina, Princeton, Harvard, UConn, Maryland — these programs produce Olympians and All-Americans every cycle.
When a fan in Evanston fuels a Northwestern field hockey player, that’s a real NIL deal. When a Cape Cod local fuels Katie Shanahan, that’s a real NIL deal. When alumni rally around the roster they grew up watching, those athletes get paid — and they get paid by the people who actually know the game.
This is fan-powered NIL. Built for how field hockey players actually win.
The Stars You Should Already Know
These are the players defining college field hockey at the Division I level right now — and every single one of them, plus hundreds more, is on RallyFuel’s field hockey roster.
Maddie Zimmer (Northwestern) is the headliner. The graduate student midfielder from Hershey, PA was just named the 2025 NFHCA Division I National Player of the Year — for the second straight season. She’s a four-time First-Team All-American, the reigning Big Ten Player of the Year, and the engine behind Northwestern’s back-to-back national titles.
Beth Yeager (Princeton) runs the midfield for the Tigers and just took her squad to the national championship game. The senior from Greenwich, CT is a four-time Ivy League Co-Offensive Player of the Year, earned NFHCA All-Region First Team honors, and is on the 2026 USA Women’s National Team roster. Representing your country and playing for a national title in the same year? That’s the résumé.
Ryleigh Heck (UNC) was the 2023 National Player of the Year and is currently with Team USA in Auckland. Bo van Kempen (Syracuse) earned All-ACC First-Team honors after leading the Orange in scoring. Dionne van Aalsum (Iowa) is the most prolific scorer in Division I at 1.40 points per game.
Across divisions, Parker Keeler (Newberry College) took home the 2025 NFHCA Division II National Player of the Year. Hannah Biccard (Tufts) won the Division III award after scoring the overtime game-winner that clinched the national title for the Jumbos.
These are the athletes who deserve a fan base built around them. RallyFuel is where it starts.
Your Roster Is Waiting
The athletes are world-class. The competition is elite. And the fans — alumni, parents, classmates, hometown supporters — have always been there.
Now there’s a way to turn that fandom into something real.
Start with the programs already proving fan-powered NIL works:
- Northwestern Wildcats — back-to-back national champs and Maddie Zimmer’s dynasty.
- Princeton Tigers — Beth Yeager’s squad and a perennial Final Four contender.
- North Carolina Tar Heels — the most decorated field hockey program in the country and Ryleigh Heck’s launchpad to Team USA.
- Penn State Nittany Lions — home of Phia Gladieux and a pipeline of USA National Team talent.
- Syracuse Orange — Bo van Kempen’s ACC-leading scoring attack.
- Ball State Cardinals — where Kerrianne McClay built a mid-major NIL blueprint that’s still being studied.
- Newberry College — Parker Keeler and the 2025 D-II Player of the Year.
- Tufts Jumbos — Hannah Biccard, the D-III champs, and one of the best overtime moments of the season.
- UConn Huskies — four national titles and a championship fixture for four decades.
- Maryland Terrapins — nine national championships and a pipeline that’s produced more All-Americans than almost anyone.
- Quinnipiac Bobcats — Katie Shanahan’s program and proof that small-school athletes can build big-time NIL.
Every one of these rosters is live right now. Or skip straight to every field hockey athlete on the platform and find your player.
Athletes: want to follow Phia Gladieux and Katie Shanahan’s playbook? Read our step-by-step guide on how to become an Adidas brand ambassador — application tips, what brands look for, and how to stand out.
Pick your athlete. Fuel their NIL. Refund-protected if conditions aren’t met. Watch your fandom turn into verified, transparent support for the athletes who already earned it.
Field hockey’s stars are already on the field. The only question is whether fans show up to back them.
Be the reason they do.
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