by Alex Morgan
As we pulled up into a fast-food restaurant on the way home, he said, “Okay, now here’s a whole parking lot. Where do you park your brand-new car? Do you drive it in this slot between two cars? Do you put it in a spot where there aren’t really any cars around, or do you go to this corner where there’s a car on one side and a divider on the other?”
I responded, “I’d park it where no other cars are parked.”
“Wrong!” he said. “You put it where there’s a divider because then only one car can park on the side of you. You don’t know when the lot’s going to fill up and there are going to be two cars next to you. You don’t know if someone’s going to hit you, but you reduce your chances if you have a divider on one side.”
I imagine my dad saw this trip as a way to have some special time with me before I left for college. I was the last kid to leave the house, and he was looking ahead to an empty nest. When you leave for college, for summer camp, or any time away from home, don’t forget that while you may be overcome with feelings—excitement, nervousness, or even ambivalence—your parents probably are too. You may be really ready to leave them, but those memories of the last few months can be important ones. They certainly were for me and Dad.
Like me, my dad isn’t overtly emotional. We’re both sensitive, but we don’t really wear our hearts on our sleeves. In a house with four talkative girls—me, my two sisters, and my mom—he never really says much during family conversations. He’s learned to be a guy who kind of sits back and speaks up when he has something to say. He and I don’t need to express ourselves on an emotional basis, and that’s why we get each other. Soccer has become a way to show our feelings to each other.
This all couldn’t have been more evident than when he dropped me off at the airport the day I left for Cal. Because I was going to see him in a few weeks, there wasn’t a huge buildup to me leaving. I was actually surprised he even parked the car and walked me to the ticket desk!
When we walked into the airport, I saw one of my future teammates, Megan Jesolva, who is still one of my closest friends. There she was, crying, hugging her family, and kissing everyone. I laughed, thinking how different we were. My dad just checked my bags, looked at me, and said, “Okay, Al. See you in a few weeks.”
And I was off.
In Times of Transition, No Feeling Is Wrong
Like I said before, leaving for college can be exciting, challenging, heartbreaking, or all of the above. But those emotions aren’t just reserved for college—they can come up at any time of transition: changing schools, moving, or breaking up with a boyfriend. Or you may be like me—you might not feel a certain change is such a big deal! No matter how you feel, it’s totally normal. No emotion is “right” or “wrong.” Just focus on the fact that you’re moving forward toward your goals, and that’s exciting in and of itself.
CHAPTER 9
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I’d traveled a lot in high school—weekend tournaments here and there, sometimes with my parents and sometimes without them—but I’d never been away from home for as long as I was going to be now that I was in college. UC Berkeley is four hundred miles from Diamond Bar—a good six-hour drive—so while I was going to see my parents pretty often, it wasn’t like I would be coming home on weekends. And being in Berkeley was going to be so different from Diamond Bar. I’d grown up in a nice, somewhat conservative suburb; Berkeley was a bohemian mecca that embraced politics and social causes. As for the weather? I brought lots of sweaters. It felt like it was always in the eighties in Diamond Bar. In Berkeley, the winters were going to be cool and wet and the summers were going to be in the midseventies. Granted, it was warmer than a lot of the rest of the country, but to me that was chilly!
I’d wanted a change, and that’s why I chose Cal. I think getting out of your comfort zone can be a really good thing. You may love your hometown and your family, but I bet you’ll love it more if you get away from it for a bit. As I said before, absence often makes the heart grow fonder. Or if you hate where you’re from, moving away from it will allow you to grow as an individual, and you won’t be in the shadow of your family and childhood forever.
I’ve always believed that education happens outside the classroom as much as inside it. Being in Berkeley was going to be an education—all the cultural events, restaurants, shops, and different kinds of people, not just on campus, but in the town. True, I’d be on the soccer field for hours a day, but I loved the idea of being in a place as diverse as Berkeley, California. And it was so close to San Francisco—just a quick ride on the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transportation). No more LA traffic!
My excitement wasn’t just reserved for my social life, though. I couldn’t wait to start playing soccer. But just before my first practice, I got a huge surprise: The head coach had left the school. Standing on the field was an entirely new coach, along with an assistant coach who was out of her comfort zone with a new head coach, and a plan for the team that was dramatically different from what I’d thought I was signing up for. I can’t say I was upset or shocked—I had nothing to compare this to—but many of my teammates were.
Our new coach was named Neil McGuire, and he’d just come from Texas Tech, where he’d also been head coach. He was Scottish by birth and still had his accent. Have you ever watched soccer on TV with a British commentator? Soccer always sounds better in a British accent (so does everything!), so you just assume they know more about the game than an American commentator. That was Neil for us that day. He stated his goal right away: He wanted us to win the NCAA championship. We’d made it to the second round the year before, but this year he wanted us to win it. I liked his ambition immediately. I dreamed big, so I loved having a coach who did too.
• • •
While the season started off well, I sprained my ankle early on and had to miss four games. I was out for three weeks, which felt like a lifetime and was such a blow to me. How was I going to get better and better at soccer and reach my goal of becoming a professional athlete if I kept getting injured? The memory of my torn ACL was all too fresh in my mind.
Watching my new team from the sidelines, though, I learned so much. Rather than focusing primarily on what I was doing—Were my passes good? Did I gain control of the ball enough?—I could pay attention to how the team worked. If I’d been on the field, I would have been in my own head. On the sidelines, I felt like I could soak in what other players were doing.
Watching the team interact helped me plot my strategy for how I was going to be a valuable contributor to the Bears during my first season. I wanted to be the team’s best scorer. It was just like my dad had taught me—in any game, you have an option: to win or to lose. I chose to win.
Expect the Unexpected
The last thing I expected when I got to Cal was that there would be a new head coach. But that’s life! Just when you think you know what the future holds, it suddenly changes. You may have made lists, plans, charts, whatever, thinking you know exactly the route to achieving your dreams. But then something happens, and you have to adjust. As you’re making plans and figuring out the path toward your dreams, just accept that things might not go smoothly. But that doesn’t mean you won’t get where you want to go. The path to success is often crooked, and there may be roadblocks along the way, but you can get around them.
CHAPTER 10
* * *
One of the most important things that happened to me my freshman year didn’t happen on the field or in the classroom. It happened when I reconnected with someone I’d met briefly through friends the year before on my spring break—a male soccer player named Servando Carrasco.
Raised in Mexico and San Diego, Servando was a year older than me but only a semester ahead of me at Cal. This was because he’d spent part of the previous year in Argentina playing semiprofessional soccer, attempting to sign professionally. He’d been considering signing a contract when he got a call from his mother in San Diego. She told
him she had advanced-stage breast cancer, and he was faced with a huge decision: to stay and pursue his dreams or to go and help his beloved mom. Servando got on the next flight home. He was with his mom when she had chemo and a mastectomy, and he helped nurse her back to good health.
Servando wanted to stay close to his mom, so he decided not to go back to South America and instead signed with Cal in January 2007. Like I said, I met him briefly on my spring break in April 2007, but when I arrived at Cal we got back in touch.
We hit it off immediately and started spending time together. And as I got to know him better as a friend, things accelerated quickly; we were dating within a month. I felt so comfortable with him, and I loved his friends. I was practically a fourth roommate at his apartment, like I was just one of the guys. We shared a love of soccer, had the same values, and enjoyed doing the same things for fun. I admired his devotion to his mom so much, and while I wasn’t there while she was battling breast cancer, part of the reason I still wear a pink headband during games is to honor her and other survivors.
I realized how serious things were between me and Servando while I was at the NCAA tournament my freshman year. The night before we were set to play Stanford, I was talking to one of my teammates.
“I feel really strongly about this guy,” I said. “I can’t stop thinking about him.”
And sure enough, Servando showed up at the game without me even asking him to. I’d been missing him the whole trip, and all the while he’d been planning to drive from Cal to Palo Alto to watch us play. I think that was the turning point of our relationship.
Wow. This guy is amazing, I thought. I think I really love him.
We’ve been together ever since, and in fact, we just got married! But more on that later. . . .
• • •
When I got back on my feet and began playing again after my injury, I hit the ground running. Literally. I became the go-to girl for scoring early during my freshman year because I could outrun so many players, and my shots were often dead-on. This wasn’t just luck—it was something I’d practiced time and again.
In late September, we played against Saint Mary’s, a Catholic college located about ten miles from Oakland. This was my first game after my injury, and I did something our team hadn’t done since 2004: I scored a hat trick. For those of you who don’t know, a hat trick is scoring three goals in one game. It doesn’t happen all that much for a player, but when it does, it’s so much fun.
I accomplished a few other feats I was very proud of that year. I scored the game-winning goal against Santa Clara University, who had been undefeated that season, and I was named Pac-10 and Soccer America’s Player of the Week—in the same week. I think it would have been easy to feel like everything was going so well if I’d chosen to think only about myself. But I was on a team, and when you’re part of something like that, everyone’s happiness rests on everyone’s shoulders.
That fall, one of our goalkeepers, another freshman named Jorden LaFontaine-Kussmann, was diagnosed with lymphoma. Jorden was one of my roommates, so we were close. After she was diagnosed, she stayed in Berkeley, so I saw her just as often, but she had to undergo several rounds of chemotherapy. The entire men’s varsity team shaved their heads to support her, and we all wore wristbands that read JLK. Thankfully, Jorden’s okay now, but we were all so scared for her then.
I’ll talk about this more later in the book, but Jorden’s cancer wasn’t an isolated incident. Lots of goalkeepers and soccer players are coming down with blood cancers like lymphoma now, and it’s believed to be linked to artificial turf. So not only was her illness a wake-up call for me, but it was also the first incident I’d seen in what’s become a very frightening pattern.
That season, Jorden said something that really struck me, which was that she was viewing being out as “just being injured for six months.” I thought, I’d been injured almost six months, and it had just been my knee. Not cancer. When you see someone you’re so close with go through something like she was, it really puts everything in perspective. Suddenly your problems feel so small. Suddenly you feel very thankful for what you have. I think you have to feel that every day, not just on the days when you see something awful happen. Gratitude is so important, and I try to be thankful for my life every day.
• • •
The NCAA tournament—what we’d all been working for and what our coach had set in his sights for us to win—rolled around that November. We beat Santa Clara in the first game. They never scored, and we were dominant the entire game. But then we played Stanford in the second round.
We were down 1–0 until the game was almost over, and then I made a goal with 1:50 left in regulation, sending us into overtime. Perhaps this is where I first got my reputation as a late-game threat. I scored in the last minutes then, and I’ve been doing it ever since.
Both teams were scoreless at the end of both periods of overtime, which sent us into penalty kicks. Unfortunately, we lost on kicks, but we were proud of how we’d played. And my final goal meant that I scored more goals that year than any other Cal player—as a freshman.
It was a season of highs and lows, but I was optimistic. I knew the following season would be our year.
Be Thankful
I mentioned earlier how important gratitude is. But I think it’s important not just to be grateful for the people and material possessions in your life, but also to be thankful when you accomplish one of your goals. At the end of my freshman season at Cal, I stopped, took stock of my year, and let myself be happy for a good season. I mentally thanked my coach, my teammates, and myself. Internalizing that gratitude made the accomplishments feel ever richer, and it will do the same for you.
CHAPTER 11
* * *
During the spring semester of my freshman year, I was called up to the US women’s national under-20 team for training. U-20 is a team operated under US Soccer, the governing body of soccer in the United States. U-20’s purpose is to train girls in preparation for playing on the national team. You’re not guaranteed to get on the national team if you’re on U-20, but it’s a big stepping stone if you’re headed in that direction.
My achievements as a college athlete coupled with my experience on the U-17 team had made the coaches notice me. Still, getting called up felt like a huge accomplishment. I had worked hard for it, and I knew it was all a part of my path to becoming a professional athlete, so I was thrilled.
Unfortunately, I performed horribly at the training camp, which was held in Los Angeles at the StubHub Center. I was nervous the whole time, and I fumbled practices and scrimmages in a way I never had before. I hadn’t played on a national team since before my ACL injury, when I’d played on the U-17 team, so I think I was just rusty. Couple that with my nerves, and you had a recipe for disaster.
I left training with a pit in my stomach. Maybe I’m just not cut out for this, I thought. I was happy to go back to Cal—I’d missed games and practices with them—but I couldn’t shake the unhappiness I felt about doing so badly during training. I knew I wouldn’t be called for the upcoming U-20 World Cup, so my dreams had been dashed. And it was all my fault.
But soon a miracle happened. One of the U-20 players who had been chosen had to drop off the team, and I took her spot for the World Cup qualifying tournament. I was literally the last player added to the team. I mentally thanked the coaches. Thank you for believing in me and giving me a second chance.
Sometimes life is like that. You can do badly, but you’re granted a reprieve. I don’t think you can count on things like that happening, but when they do, feel grateful and make the most of them. I was beyond grateful—I was ecstatic. And I vowed to play the best soccer of my life because of it.
• • •
Every other year, the culmination of U-20’s season is the World Cup (not the one you see on TV, but the youth World Cup). You might not have even realized there’s a
U-20 World Cup, but there is, and believe me, we are just as competitive as our older teammates! Plus, it’s exciting that our World Cup is every two years rather than every four.
When I started playing with the U-20, the team was still sort of reeling from a terrible fourth-place finish in the 2006 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Championship. They had lost on penalty kicks in the semifinal round, then on penalty kicks in the third-place game. They’d had a full season between that loss and when I started, but it was still in the back of people’s minds.
We had to travel to Mexico for the qualifying tournament, which was held in June. Unfortunately, we lost to Canada 1–0 in the qualification finals, but with a second-place finish, we still advanced to the U-20 World Cup. We felt good, and we knew the best was yet to come.
• • •
Before we headed to the World Cup, which was going to be held in Chile in late November, I did a little more traveling with the U-20 team. We were in England for a few days, and then I went back to school for my sophomore year. My head was spinning a little bit from all the travel, but I had to remind myself that this was fun, not work. Yes, I was working—hard—but I couldn’t lose sight of the fact that this was my dream.
I think sometimes we fall into patterns where we chase a goal so hard that it becomes drudgery. Or something requires so much time and effort that it stops feeling fun. I planned my wedding for most of 2014, and I felt that way constantly! Which is crazy. I scolded myself. It’s a wedding, not the SAT. It’s supposed to be fun. That year in the run-up to the U-20 World Cup, I had to tell myself that all the time. And it helped—reminding myself of how much I loved my goals made them feel fun again.