Cris Maloney
Athlete, author, entrepreneur
As an athlete, Cris Maloney ran track, primarily competing in the high and intermediate height hurdles, high jump, long jump, and 440 yard dash. In the high jump, he took second place in the New Jersey State Indoor Track Championships. He won silver again in the New Jersey State Track Championships in the 330 Yard Hurdles. He and his teammates set the national high school record in the 480 Yard Shuttle Hurdle Relay on May 3, 1975. Their time was 58.2 seconds (he remembers being told his split was 14.2 seconds). For this accomplishment, he and his teammates were named All Americans by Track & Field News. Maloney began playing field hockey for men’s teams in the North East Field Hockey Association. He played on the men's field hockey East Team in the United States Olympic Committee's 1982 National Sports Festival and won a Silver Medal. Subsequently, he served as an assistant coach to two undefeated, gold medal men’s field hockey teams in the USOC’s National Sports Festivals, was invited to attend an Olympic Solidarity coaching seminar offered by the International Olympic Committee where he presented his paper, Field Hockey: The First 30-Minutes. Through the 1990s and 2000s, he was a nationally ranked umpire and certified Level II Umpire Coach.
He is the author of Teaching Hurdling, Field Hockey: Understanding the Game, Field Hockey: The Beginner’s Guide, and other field hockey books.
As an entrepreneur he developed a field hockey training product called STICK IQ/SkillzMachine and a protection product called FootFORT. He founded the Garden State Games Field Hockey Event (1983-2005). He publishes a successful on-demand online field hockey umpiring course at UmpireHockey.com. He founded a private field hockey community group on Facebook that has grown to nearly 35,000 members. In the mid-1980s, he began doing play-by-play and color announcing at national and international tournaments. He can still be heard providing color commentary at some college field hockey games. He is the host of the Field Hockey Talk podcast.
