Michele Madison- Camp Director
Running owner operated camps for 28 years in San Diego, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, East Lansing and Charlottesville!

Head coach Michele Madison returns for her 12th season at the helm of the Cavalier field hockey program and Absolutely the Best Field Hockey Camp, inc. Director. She has led UVa to the NCAA Tournament eight of her ten seasons in Charlottesville, including Final Four appearances in 2009 and 2010. Absolutely the Best Field Hockey camp has been sold out each summer. A day/mini camp was added in 2012 to address more camper needs. Absolutely the Best Field Hockey camp has been voted #1 best camp by campers for Best Coaches, Best fields and Most Fun! 

Madison brings in international coaches, current student athletes from the 2015 Elite Eight team as well as USA national team members who are available. Two of Madison's All-Americans at Virginia, Paige Selenski and Michelle Vittese, helped the U.S. National Team to gold medals at the Pan American Games in October 2011. The duo earned a spot on Team USA's roster for the 2012 London Olympics  and the 2016 Rio games. Both were campers and later coaches at Absolutely the Best Field Hockey Camp, Inc. 

In 2015, the Cavaliers returned to the NCAA Elite Eight in after beating Delaware in the first round. Virginia finished the season nationally ranked 3rd with one of the nation's toughest schedules and garnered National Player of the Year honors as well as 2 first team All Americans.  In 2014, Virginia won its first ACC regular season title.

Madison, is in her 28th overall season as a collegiate head coach. She is the only coach to take three different Division I programs (Temple, Michigan State and Virginia) to the NCAA Tournament and her teams have consistently been ranked in the top-10 at various times of the past decades. Madison recorded her 300th career win season and her 100th Virginia win when Paige scored her 100th Virginia goal. In addition to her experience in the college ranks, Madison also is one of two Division I head coach to be a part of two United States Olympic staffs, having managed the 1988 Olympic Team in Seoul and served as the head goalkeeper coach with the 1996 squad in Atlanta. UVa's Paige Selenski and Michelle Vittese were both named to the 2012 United States Olympic team after making the USA squad in the summer of 2010. They earned their first international caps in matches with the English and Irish national teams that summer. They continue to represent Team USA, have since competed at multiple Four Nations tournaments, the Champions Challenge and the Pan American Games and the London and Rio Olympics.

Selenski a rare 4 time All American and ACC offensive player of the Year, broke the UVA career scoring record set by Meredith Thorpe. She led in every ACC offensive statistical category. Michelle Vittese, named USA Player of the Year in 2012, was a 3rd time 1st team All American in 2012. Teammate Elly Buckley was a third-team honoree, marking the second consecutive year three Cavaliers earned the distinction of All-American. Additionally, Virginia placed seven student-athletes on the all-region team, including a (Buckley, Selenski, Vittese and Jenny Johnstone). Buckley was also selected to the national all-rookie team, named by womensfieldhockey.com, becoming the sixth Virginia named to the squad under Madison. Jenny Johnston was name ALL Goalkeeper. 

In her first year in Charlottesville, Madison orchestrated Virginia's return to the top-10 and was named the 2006 National Coach of the Year bywomensfieldhockey.com. That year, Virginia rose to as high as No. 4 in the nation and advanced to the quarterfinals of the NCAA Tournament before ending the season with a 14-8 record against the nation's fifth-toughest schedule. Madison coached Kaars Sijpestijn to first-team All-America honors, Virginia's first first-team All-American since 1998. She also mentored Ragukas to National Rookie Team recognition, the first such honor for a Cavalier in school history.

Elly Appel- Co-Director

Elly will meet every camper and is the camper go to person during camp breaks. 

Elly is a retired international professional tennis player & coach from the Netherlands playing such prestigious competitions as the French Open, the U.S. Open, Wimbledon & the Australian Open. In addition, Elly has also played 13 times for the Netherlands Fed Cup team. Since retiring, she has won 5 World Cup titles for the Netherlands in the senior tennis circuit.

Throughout Elly's career she was intrigued with the mind, body & soul connection and used her personal practices to maintain a sharp competitive edge. She developed a training program specializing in a mindful state of awareness through alignment, coordination and balance. Over three decades, Elly created a unique heart connection approach synergistically integrating the power of movement and coordination that taps into the joy available in each of us.

Ole Keusgen- Technical Director and Master Coach

Ole Keusgen joined the staff in 2015 as an assistant coach, focusing on the Cavalier defense.

In addition to serving as an assistant coach for the Cavaliers, Keusgen will also be one of the coaches leading U.S.A. Field Hockey's U-19 Women's National Team and Junior High Performance program in 2017.

Keusgen has been playing field hockey since the age of six, including playing professionally in Germany with one of the most successful field hockey clubs in European history, Uhlenhorst Mülheim, winning the German Indoor championship in 2015 and the Euro Indoor Club Cup in 2015. Keusgen also competed with the German National Team, winning a bronze medal at the 2013 World University Games in Kazan.

In addition to playing hockey, Keusgen has also spent the last 10 years coaching the sport, coaching both the men’s and women’s first teams of Oberhausener THC. Keusgen graduated with a bachelor of science in sport science with a focus on training and health from Ruhr University Bochum in Germany.

Rachel Dawson- Director of Player Development

Rachel Dawson joined the UVA coaching staff in 2017 as an assistant coach after retiring from playing with the US Women's National Team.

Dawson was a three-time Olympian, competing in Beijing in 2008 and London in 2012 and helped lead the Americans to a fifth-place showing at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, where a valiant quarterfinal comeback against Germany came up just one goal short. Dawson, who has 298 international caps, won five golds in international competitions, including at the 2011 and 2015 Pan Am Games, and four silvers.

​Dawson is an Atlantic Coast Conference veteran, graduating with distinction from the University of North Carolina. Dawson earned the 2007 Honda Award as the National Player of the Year for field hockey and was selected as one of the five finalists for the Honda-Broderick Cup as the nation's top collegiate female athlete. With 19 goals that season, the midfielder was the top scorer for the No. 1 offensive team in the country while also being named the 2007 ACC Defensive Player of the Year and the 2007 ACC Tournament MVP.