Michele Madison
​Camp Director
Running owner operated camps for 30 years in San Diego, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, East Lansing and Charlottesville!

Head coach Michele Madison, a member of the National Field Hockey Coaches Association Hall of Fame and a former assistant US National Team and Olympic coach, has spent 13 seasons at the helm of the Cavalier field hockey program, leading UVA to 11 NCAA Tournament berths, including national semifinals appearances in 2009 and 2010, and winning the first ACC title in program history in 2016. After leading her squad to the regular season conference title, she was named the 2017 ACC Field Hockey Coach of the Year, becoming just the second Virginia head coach to win the honor.

Madison, who in 2012 became just the 26th head coach in NCAA Division I history to hit the 300-win mark, currently ranks eighth among active coaches in career wins and has accumulated more wins than any other coach in Virginia program history. In 2019, she will be going for the 400th win of her collegiate coaching career, entering the season with a career record of 394-290-8.

During her tenure in Charlottesville, Madison has recruited and coached a three four-time All-Americans, Paige Selenski, Elly Buckley and Tara Vittese, who was the first player in program history to be named to the first team all four years of her career. In all, eight different Cavaliers have earned 22 All-America honors while playing for Madison.

Under Madison’s guidance, Tara Vittese became the first Cavalier and third-ever ACC player to be named the Longstreth/NFHCA National Player of the Year. As the recipient of the honor in 2015, 2016 and 2017, Vittese is the only player to ever be deemed top player in the country by the National Field Hockey Coaches Association three times in her career. Vittese was also a two-time ACC Offensive Player of the Year, the only Cavalier to twice be named the top player in the conference.

Two other of Madison's All-Americans, Selenski and Michelle Vittese, helped the U.S. National Team to its first gold medal at the Pan American Games in October 2011. Vittese, the 2012 USA Field Hockey Player of the year, and Selenski also competed with the US squad at the 2012 London Olympics and have helped elevate the US squad to a world No. 5 ranking in the lead up to the 2016 Rio Olympics. Vittese went on to compete in Rio with Selenski, hampered by injuries, named as an alternate to the squad.

Madison, a former member of the NCAA National Field Hockey Committee, has serves as a collegiate head coach for 30 years. She is the only person 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 decade. In addition to her experience in the college ranks, Madison also is one of only two active Division I head coaches to be a part of two United States Olympic staffs, having worked as a manager with the 1988 Olympic Team in Seoul and served as the head goalkeeper coach with the 1996 squad in Atlanta.

---

Elly Appel
Co-Director
Elly’s goal is to 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 Absolutely the Best Master Coach

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

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 2018 into 2019..

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 Holistic 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. A proven great addition to the staff and to Absolutely the Best Field Hockey Camp.
Imagine being coached by a 3x Olympian at camp!

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.