There is no off season.

"The vision of a champion is someone who is bent over, drenched in sweat, at the point of exhaustion when no one else is watching."

-Anson Dorrance

The above is a quote from the winningest head coach in women's soccer history and our neighbor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In case you haven't heard about him, he has guided his Tar Heel program to 21 national championships, which is about 19 more than any other program in the country. To say he runs a women's soccer dynasty would be an understatement... he's essentially changed the game. 

I've never been coached by Anson nor do I consider myself a national contender. But one thing I can honestly say we both share is a passion for a strong work ethic. Mine is minuscule compared to his, and I have less credentials to back it up. But even though it's taken some time, I've developed into a person who has a clear view of what's in front of her and a practical idea of what it takes to get there. 

If you've kept up with my writing, then you know by now that something happened last season that really stuck. I became emotionally invested in soccer in a way that I've never experienced before. You see, before then, I played because it was all I knew. It had just become a part of my life and as much as I wanted to win, I didn't really know the kind of sacrifice it took to achieve success. Plus, even when I learned that things like conference titles take sacrifice, I didn't realize that despite your efforts you might still fail.

But then after that, everything sort of clicked. I had become a different athlete-- one who is so strangely obsessed with my own vulnerability and sees an opponent as an obstacle rather than a threat. I was no longer on my heels. You can overcome an obstacle. People do it every day.

Then this spring happened. Our spring training starts in January, but it's all strength and fitness until mid-February. We then have strength, fitness, and soccer practices every day of the week and seven or so games spread out between February and April.

I've known what to expect out of spring because I've been through this process twice before. It's early mornings. It's two naps a day. It's games that don't matter for anything other than your own personal development. 

But something about this spring was different after having such an emotional roller coaster of a fall season. Our first game was on February 26 against Virginia Tech, and I'll never forget the feeling I felt when I saw my jersey for the first time since Memphis last November. I looked at it like an old friend, but one who I hadn't seen in a while because of a stupid fight or a misunderstanding. The last time I had that jersey on, I didn't want to take it off because of what it meant. I suddenly reminisced on looking at the game clock at the Mike Rose Soccer Stadium, seeing that we were down 0-3 with 10 minutes left against the #4 team in the country. "Savor these last few minutes. This might actually be how it will end." Before that moment, I was naive enough to think we would go on and win forever. That was the first time I ever saw the possibility of our season's end. In a way, it blindsided me.

The game against Memphis ended and I went against my own rituals by not changing out of my jersey until I got in my hotel room. It was a stupid jersey and a stupid dream and a stupid way to end conference tournament but I just couldn't take it off. I couldn't let go.

But then I came back down to real life and I thought something different despite being reminded of all the bittersweet feelings that came with the last time I had it on. It wasn't November. It was February. 

"A beginning," I thought. "Another chance."

And how's that for poetic? How often to we get another chance to accomplish something so significant? You don't get that extra chance to re-do a job interview, or that extra chance to say goodbye. That's what I love about soccer, or sports in general. Things are always seemingly fatal without ever really extinguishing your spark.

The rest of spring went well despite knowing that the team we have this year is very different from that of last year. Not bad different, just different. We don't have quite as much speed so we'll have to make the ball do most of the work, which is probably a good thing because when we play with one or two touches we look like one of the best programs in the country. 

I personally will need to be exceptionally incredible, hopefully maintaining a goals against average of less than 1 (per game). My GAA for this spring was the lowest it's been my whole career, at 0.85. Which is due almost in whole to my defense because we played rival teams like NC State and UNC Wilmington and I hardly had to do anything at all. 

We finished our spring season last Sunday when we played Wake Forest, who is one of the teams expected to win the national title this upcoming season. We've played them before so we knew what to expect, and we held our professionalism and played with confidence even though they clearly dominated the game. We ended up losing 1-3, and that marked the end of our spring season. But unlike fall, there were no tears. No embarrassment. No regrets. Instead, relief. Relief that our bodies get a break and happiness in knowing that the next time we'll all be together again is on July 31st, when our 2012 journey officially begins. A journey that consists of playing against arguably the second women's soccer dynasty and 2010 national championship team at Notre Dame, along with SEC powerhouse South Carolina, and a few other unique rivals before heading back to the Mike Rose Stadium in Memphis and fighting the fire at its source. 

I'm not saying that we're going to be a Cinderella story and beat Anson Dorrance's UNC program in overtime of the 2012 NCAA Championships. You can't predict that sort of thing, and trying to will drive you crazy. After all, there's only one team in the country who is completely satisfied with their season, and even that takes repetition. But what I am saying is that I'm ready. I'm ready to reach my full potential and I'm ready to make something count and I'm ready to have this team follow me if we get to that point where we're losing and frustrated and can't find our way. I'm ready because I've worked-- am working-- for the sake of this second chance.

Our last home game of the spring season vs. our ECU alumni

A year of detail, in detail

“The power of one is above all things the power to believe in yourself,
often well beyond any latent ability you may have previously demonstrated. The
mind is the athlete, the body is simply the means it uses to run faster or
longer, jump higher, shoot straighter, kick better, swim harder, hit further,
or box better.”

–Bryce Courtenay

I had a goalkeeper coach tell me back in January that the little things make the biggest difference (Vanilla Sky, anyone?). It was since then when I began assessing myself meticulously… as an athlete and a person. It was also then when I discovered that the little things are far more difficult to overcome than the big things. Big moments are, more often than not, driven by a single, concentrated ability to focus. Little ones are driven by continuous habit.

This year has been all about detail. It’s been about training myself to wake up at 5:30am to run, then lift, then practice, only to remind myself that I am here to get a degree and therefore I need to make my coffee a venti so I can work a little bit harder and get a little bit smarter. It’s also been about doing all of that while being at any given point on the map. Or while facing any of Mother Nature’s glorious elements.

Every year, we get to this point where we start to reflect on everything we’ve done in twelve short months. It’s pretty safe to say that 2011 has changed us all in one way or another… current events alone will tell you that much. But the little moments throughout the year, the ones disguised as tedious chores or sudden tragedies, have tested our endurance. The way we’ve adapted from them has defined us.

The way we’ve created ourselves is due in whole to the mind. I am less of an athlete now than I will be a year from now, and am most definitely a better athlete today than I was a year ago. You see, something magical happened in between then and now. A pure example of such magic dates back to January. That’s when I was told that I needed to cut two minutes off of my two-mile time (one of our fitness tests). That was confusing, to say the least. I wasn’t really sure how it was relevant because as you know, I’m a goalkeeper and we do just about everything but we don’t run two miles… um… ever. Anyways.

In February I sat on the bench during the first of our spring games because I was still about a minute too slow. So in March I ran. And ran. And ran. In April my coach started playing me again, but it wasn’t enough. So I ran some more. I went home in May, and kept running. I also trained with my goalkeeper trainer in Santa Monica because I’d be a pretty useless goalkeeper if all I did was run. I lifted. I ate a little better. I went back to Greenville in August and was still about thirty seconds off. But I was the best goalkeeper I’ve ever been. I was smarter off of my line, I communicated with my defenders more efficiently, and I was stronger… all of which are completely irrelevant to running. That's the irony of it all... while I thought I was training my body, I was training my mind. And those months of disciplining my mind and finding a peace despite knowing I was being held to a specific standard made all the difference. That is ultimately what defined me and what will define me as I move forward.

Moving forward is, as I’ve decided, the testament for knowing you’re successful in doing the little things. I still have a long way to go before I reach my full potential, but as I approach the beginning of winter conditioning, I’m reminded that it’s my mind, not my body, that will create all of my opportunities.

Finally, an update: last week I went to the Philippine consulate to apply for dual-citizenship so that I can take the next step in becoming a member of the Philippine Women’s National Team. I also sent them a few of my highlights from last season. The video is posted below. The first competitions are tentatively set for a March friendlies tournament in Qatar followed by another in Thailand sometime in April. And as I’m knocking on wood, believe me when I say that I’m really, really looking forward to bringing in the New Year if that’s what it has in store.

What did 2011 teach you? Were those lessons ever disguised in the form of something else the way running the two-mile was for me?

Turning the Page

“Find life experiences and swallow them whole. Travel. Meet many people. Go down some dead ends and explore dark alleys. Try everything. Exhaust yourself in the glorious pursuit of life."
-Lawrence K. Fish

The pursuit of life, as I’m learning, is easiest when defined as a series of failures. You can only truly consider yourself successful when you’ve failed enough times in searching for such success.

This past soccer season had its fair share of failures and victories. My team sat down in early August to discuss our goals, and decided that we wanted to accomplish a certain set of achievements that, if done right, would make us one of the best programs in the country. We wanted to be conference champions. We wanted to make the NCAA tournament. We wanted to be nationally ranked. Aside from that, I had my own personal goals. I held an expectation for myself to earn All-Conference honors, get 10 shutouts, and have the highest save percentage in the conference. None of those goals, both team and individual, ended up coming true.

Looking back, we did everything right. In August, we fought through preseason where we trained for over four hours a day in triple-digit temperatures. We woke up early to run fitness tests and spent our afternoons recovering in ice baths. In our locker room, we posted Conference USA’s predictions for the 2011 season, where we were chosen to finish 9th out of 12 teams. In big bold letters we wrote, “What are we going to do about this?” and it was the only thing we saw on our way out to practice every day. People didn’t believe in us, but we believed in ourselves and at the time, that was all that mattered.

The first half of conference didn’t go too well despite a successful preseason. There was a point where our record was 1-5 and our hopes of going to conference tournament (en route to the NCAA’s) were getting smaller and smaller. At no point did anyone lose complete faith, but we didn’t say our goals out loud anymore... we were no longer that confident. The turning point was right after we played and lost against the University of Tulsa. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen my teammates cry so much after a game, but that was so much more significant than a simple game. It was everything we had invested ourselves in. It was knowing that reality doesn’t adjust itself just because you want something. However we later learned that if you want something badly enough, it’s no longer a want. It’s a need. And amazing things can happen when you really, truly need something.

That was the story of the rest of our season. We went on to win all but one game, locking in our bid to the C-USA Tournament (hosted by Memphis). In Memphis, we performed under pressure on the biggest stage of the year, beating The University of Central Florida for the first time in program history. Two days later, we faced The University of Memphis in the semi-finals, where our storybook season came to a close. Memphis is currently the #4 team in the nation, and rightfully so. They have yet to lose a game this year. They’re breaking school records, conference records, and even NCAA records. They’ve deserved everything they’ve earned.

I think that was the hardest part-- knowing that they had goals too, but unlike us, they met them. When you’re chasing any dream, whether it be in soccer or in life, you go through your journey believing that it’s your story. But sometimes you have to remember that there are people out there wanting exactly what you want, and sometimes you have to accept that even though you’ve worked hard and you’ve invested so much, sometimes it’s not entirely your story. Sometimes it’s theirs.

The next day, we were fortunate enough to distract ourselves from the reality of our season’s end by exploring the city of Memphis. We went to Sun Studio, a place most commonly known as the home of Elvis’ first recording. What a lot of people don’t know, though, is it was that same place where Sam Phillips turned Elvis down for over a year before finally (and reluctantly) giving him a record deal. We then saw the Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel, where I learned that Ralph Abernathy boldly promised the believers that they would find justice, despite the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. Finally, we spent time on Beale Street and while sitting at BB King’s, eating dinner and listening to a live amateur band, it finally hit me: aspiration is everywhere. Musicians who play at BB King’s are doing so with the hopes of being somewhere bigger and better. Athletes don’t want to win games, they want to win titles. Winning games is just a stepping stone in the process. Losing games is too. Teachers, artists, businessmen, writers. They all want to get somewhere, but the actual act of getting there is more powerful than knowing you’ve succeeded.

I set specific goals for myself and for this team and at the end of the day, it’s safe to say that we failed miserably. But defining ourselves as failures based on the overall result wouldn’t be fair, either. It’s so easy to feel defeated when you’ve held yourself to an expectation, but in this I’ve learned that even through failure you can find something to hold on to. And that’s what it’s about, really. The pursuit of anything may take several tries, but in each failed attempt lays a series of little victories. So yes, the big picture will tell you that we’ve failed. But during our overall failure, we beat UCF when they were ranked #18. We tied William & Mary when they were #21. We came back from a condemned 1-5 record and shocked our conference when they had already lost all hope in us. As for me, I went on to receive All-Tournament honors, a variation of my All-Conference goal. And while sitting in my hotel room after losing to Memphis, feeling exhausted of disappointment and embarrassment in myself, I received a phone call from my coach, saying that the Philippine Women’s National Team is interested in having me join their roster.

This journey for me is far from over. I am still determined to win a conference title, play in the NCAA Tournament, and have our program at East Carolina be among the best in the nation. Those goals stay the same, and will join the long list of things that I plan to accomplish as an athlete, a person, and a future journalist. But in doing so, I’m fully aware that none of them will ever be a reality unless I’m willing to grow through my own defeats-- unless I’m willing to move on from what is written, and turn the page.