The Akron Beacon Journal from Akron, Ohio • Page 124

A Lady Who Swings A Mean Stick by Linda B. Klein I 4 ''i A ft INL V-v ft 'If- I She has all the proper credentials and fits comfortably into the Akron social scene. After all, part of being a true champion and a team player is knowing how to play the game, But most people don't know Ruth Heller Aucott as other than the wife of George W. Aucott, president and chief operating officer of Firestone. They've never seen the scrapbooks of press clippings that chronicle the accomplishments of this Hall of Fame athlete.

"Some do know me as a five-handicap golfer or a better-than-average tennis player," says Aucott, who was the Akron Women's Tennis champ in the mid-1960s and the 1987 winner and 1988 runner-up of the Ohio Senior Women's Golf Tournament. "Actually, I tend to do better when I'm playing as a partner or on a team because I want to win for the people I'm playing with. That's why my recent success in the golf tournaments was so special for me." A natural and gifted athlete in every sport she's ever played, Aucott says she doesn't compete to win a prize. "I compete because that's where the best athletes are and because I love the playing of the game," she says. Not to belittle her achievements on the golf course or tennis court, however, neither of those sports holds a candle to Aucott's first passion in the world of sports.

It is a driving passion that has kept her "playing the field," virtually around the world, since she was a seventh-grader in the Philadelphia area. When it comes to field hockey, Ruth Heller Aucott is a legend in her own time. Field hockey? That's where two teams, of 11 players each, square off against each other and with curved-bottom wooden sticks try to hit a hard ball into the opposing goal cage. For two 35-minute halves, the running, passing and marking are almost non-stop on a soccer-sized playing field. The game was introduced to the United States from England in the early 1900s by Constance Appleby, a private-school teacher changes since 1955, when 21-year-old collegian Ruth Heller was selected to her first United States I team.

There have been U.S. teams since the 1920s, but until 1955 no player still in college had been named to an All-America squad. Since her playing days, Aucott has remained at the forefront of the game's evolution, serving as an umpire and as a member of the Rules Committee of the United States Field Hockey Association. Field hockey is a game of stamina, strategy and skill and it suits this woman who admits to being "in love with motion." So important was the game to her that husband George willingly agreed to postpone their wedding plans. As a member of the 1956 United States Team, Ruth spent that summer after graduation in Australia.

Many more First Team honors and international tournament trips came in the years that followed. All along, George Aucott has encouraged his wife's sporting life. "I could not have remained so active without George's support," she says. "There was no sense of compromise because my involvement was a priority for him, too." Whenever possible, George arranged his business schedule around his wife's sports commitments. Field hockey has served as Aucott's ticket to travel, fun and getting to know a diversity of people that she would not have met any other way.

"Although some people may perceive me as hard to get to know, the irony is that I really enjoy people," she confides. "It's the interaction with people which makes me want to play in tournaments and keep traveling. It's people that make the world go 'round. That's what makes life fun." Aucott doesn't discuss her sports involvements with people who do not share those interests, and, in any case, she certainly does not toot her own horn. She is so understated and poised that it's hard to imagine this gracious lady causing anyone to feel uneasy.

She is very much the corporate executive's wife, as well as the grandmother of two by the Ruth Heller Aucott outside her Bath Township home. on the East Coast. Its popularity predominates in the New England and Mid-Atlantic states, with Aucott's native Philadelphia still a hotbed boasting "thousands of hockey games every week." Pockets of hockey activity thrive in Ohio, mostly notably in Hudson, where Western Reserve Academy annually hosts a major high school tournament. This past August, Aucott conducted a clinic for officials and coaches at the academy. The game has undergone many technical 12 BEACON January 8, 1989.