Phia Gladieux at USA Field Hockey × Leatherius Woodman – a leather stamping study
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies on real-world marks.
An August study.
Phia Gladieux at USA Field Hockey plays forward for the United Eagles, the women's national team, and her story closes a circle. She picked up a stick as a third grader in Oley, Pennsylvania. Years later, already chasing Paris, she stood in front of a third-grade classroom as a student teacher, and her reason was plain: “I liked growing the game and spreading my knowledge to younger generations.”
At Penn State she captained the 2024 side and left as the program's all-time leading scorer. In Paris she scored her first Olympic goal in a draw with Spain. A forward's record reads like one long pass carried up the pitch, so we pressed her federation's mark and let the teaching line run through everything else in the set.
Pressed
The official cap-and-stick mark is wide, so it runs lengthwise along each tag. We pressed the family in deep navy blueberry and warm poppy red, the pair the mark already owns. The black tag carries the study's only gold, a nod to the metallic gold the federation keeps among its secondary standards. Every other press in this study is blind deboss; a governing body's mark sits best in leather when it is quiet.
The wing that finishes as a stick
USA Field Hockey calls its women's senior team the United Eagles, and we took the name at its word. One wing in flight, drawn in a few tapered feathers. The longest feather refuses to end; it keeps going until it curls into the hook of a stick, with the ball waiting just off the toe. Wing and stick share one line the way a forward's stride and her reach share one intent. The keychain duo wears the design in navy blueberry and warm poppy red, pressed below the rivet. The dopp kits stack navy blueberry over deep espresso brown, with the full lockup sitting small in the lower right corner of each front face, the way a maker signs a bag.
Inside the circle
Field hockey keeps one stern rule for scoring: a goal counts only when the shot is taken inside the striking circle. The tray die borrows the rule whole. The goal line runs across the top with the D swung beneath it; outside the D a broken five-meter echo keeps its distance, and the ball waits on its spot. IN HERE IT COUNTS runs under the arc. Whatever a traveling player drops in at night, a room key or a whistle, lands where goals come from. We pressed it centered in the golden tan arizona base, clear of the stitched border.
Grow the game
A full-length stick and a junior stick stand on one baseline with their hooks turned toward each other. The ball sits mid-pass in the gap between them, and GROW THE GAME runs underneath, capitals borrowed from her own answer. The journal duo carries the design generously in the lower right corner: navy blueberry for the playbook, pale warm greige gray sand for the notes a player writes to the third grader she once was. We considered adding her number 4 and set it aside – rosters change, and this set should keep teaching after they do.
We made this out of love. Leatherius Woodman is on a mission to create and share artifacts of beauty, craft and love – this study is one of them, and we hope the feeling is mutual. Every image is a render – how we prototype before cutting a die.
If you're Phia Gladieux or USA Field Hockey and you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.