Helping her teammates become their best selves is a goal that Meg Barnes ’23 strives to achieve every day as a teammate and captain.
Barnes decided to return to Dartmouth for a fifth year in the fall and continue playing on the field hockey team. She was granted an extra season of eligibility after missing her sophomore season during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“When I was presented with the opportunity to be able to play for one last season, it was a no-brainer for me,” Barnes said. “Why not have three more months of playing a game I love and doing it with the people I love?”
Although Dartmouth field hockey has ranked consistently at the bottom of the Ivy League in the past two seasons, Barnes and the rest of the team recently celebrated their first Ivy League win since 2018 against Brown University. Dartmouth defeated the Bears 2-0 on Sept. 30.
“It’s a role I obviously really love because I want to be there and help push people to become better and work harder and motivate them,” Barnes said.
Barnes’s teammate Helen Young ’25 attested to how motivating Barnes is to the rest of the team. According to Young, Barnes is not afraid to give constructive feedback in order to keep pursuing the team’s best performance, even though it might be intimidating in the team’s close-knit environment.
“She [gives feedback] very graciously and does not say it condescendingly whatsoever,” Young said. “You can tell it is coming from a true and caring place as a teammate, as someone who wants the team to be as good as they can be.”
Barnes’s co-captain Bronwyn Bird ’24 agreed, saying that Barnes’s emotional intelligence boosts team morale and makes all the difference in encouraging the team to stay resilient. On the field, the duo work together to reach peak coordination with the rest of their teammates.
“As a captain, she uses her voice really well, not overly, but she knows when to speak and when to stay silent,” Bird said. “We both use our voices to work together, and I know that I definitely learned from her last year when she was captain with Myah [Pease ’23],” Bird said.
Barnes’s desire to make others around her better through communication does not go unnoticed by her coaches either, especially by assistant field hockey strength and conditioning coach Liv Indorf, who refers to Barnes as a representative of the team’s voice.
“It’s really nice to have someone like [Barnes] to kind of be a buffer between me and the team, to be someone that I know that I can go to see where we are mentally, physically, and how we’re feeling,” Indorf said.
Barnes’s effective use of her voice on the field seems to have improved tremendously throughout her time on the team. Young commented on the progression of her leadership in the past few years.
“She’s definitely found her voice more and gotten more comfortable giving advice,” Young said. “It is such a big part of the sport being able to talk to other players.”
Young and Indorf both commented on how Barnes also makes a lasting impression off the field with her kindness and emotional intelligence.
“Off the field you’ll see someone who is a good member of the community,” Indorf said. “She is always going to be a smiling face. She’s always going to say hello to people that she’s going past.”
Barnes reflected that her growth since her freshman year at Dartmouth is a direct reflection of her teammates and coaches, who she has a high degree of gratitude for.
“I learned things from [my teammates and coaches] everyday, like how to be a good person, how to work hard, how to motivate each other,” Barnes said. ”They’re extremely inspiring to me, and so I think they’ve helped shape me to be a better person on the field, off the field, in the classroom.
As Barnes’s time at Dartmouth winds down, she looks ahead to her future away from Dartmouth. After receiving her diploma, she plans to move to New York City and become a consultant for Deloitte starting in December. However, now, she is just trying to enjoy the remainder of her Dartmouth career.
“It’s a massive honor to help lead the team and be there to support people,” Barnes said.
