The Rice Thresher, Vol. 92, No. 10, Ed. 1 Friday, October 29, 2004 Page: 14 of 20
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14
THE RICE THRESHER SPORTS FEATURE FRIDAY. OCTOBER 29,2004
ROM START-UP TO FINISH
The 10 seniors remaining from the inaugural soccer team have made their mark at Rice, on and off the field
story by Jonathan Yardley
Fourteen freshmen, two former club
players and two transfers started the soccer
program in 2001. The 10 seniors who remain
from Rice's first-ever team have run a gamut of
emotions in their time at Rice. Their experience
mirrors the rest of the student body*s, even as
they change the school itself. The seniors are
able to represent the university so well because
they are embedded in it, even though they
comprise Rice's newest varsity team.
Getting to Rice
To work toward complying with federal
gender equity requirements as part of Title IX
of the 1972 Educational Amendments, Rice
announced during the 1999-2000 school
year that it would add women's soccer as
a varsity sport. Although Rice nad never
had a men's or women's varsity soccer
team, the sport was already popular
on campus with club, intramural and
casual players.
"We knew there was a strong club
team on campus, Senior Associate
Athletic Director Steve Moniaci
said. "That was a really important
factor — we knew there was interest
on campus. You look around, and the
type of athlete that plays soccer would
be an asset to the Rice campus."
The Athletic Department announced
Chris Huston as head coach in May 2000,
and she faced difficulties convincing play-
ers to join a non-existent team.
"My mom was like, 'Oh, Sarah, Rice wrote
you, why don't you look at them?'" forward
Sarah Yoder said. "When I saw they didn't have
a program, I was like, 'Are you kidding me? I'm
not coming here. Why would I want to go to this
school that didn't even have a program?'"
Huston encountered some unusual cir-
cumstances in recruiting players for at club
tournaments for her first team. At one tourna-
ment in Florida, Huston almost overlooked
goalkeeper Lauren Shockley because a team
parent misreported Shockley's college inten-
tions. Brother Michael Shockley, now at Rice as
the director of athletic facilities and operation s,
sought Huston out.
"[Huston] asks one of the dads on my
team, 'Has your keeper committed?' ... And
they told her that I had committed to George
Washington," Shockley said. "This dad is telling
my brother this later, and he's like, 'She hasn't
committed.' So my brother goes and finds Chris
at this tournament — my brother met Chris
before she ever met me — and he finds her
and tells her I haven't committed."
The Indianapolis native — one of four non-
Texans in the original recruiting class — said
her parents influenced her decision.
"My parents were so hands-off in my recruit-
ing, that it's funny that Rice is the only place
they made me visit," Shockley said. "[My dad]
printed out a copy of the U.S. News and World
Report and highlighted Rice on there. And on
it I wrote, 'Hell no, I won't go.'"
One of Huston's first recruits came from an
empty stomach at a tournament in California.
"I joined Rice soccer because of Chris' obses-
sion with food," midfielder Jackie Rellas said.
"She saw my dad eating popcorn and really
wanted some, and asked my dad where to get
it My dad noticed she had a Rice shirt on and
said, 'Hey, will you please watch my daughter?'
So she totally humors him and goes and watches
me and obviously somewhat liked me."
Rellas and defender
Caitlin Currie
1
"I knew coming in that I was going to be
scared and nervous," midfielder/forward
Ashley Anderson said. "I got hives on the
drive down to Rice, which doesn't usually
happen because I don't consider myself a
shy person."
wmkL
started the program at Piano West High
School, winning state championships in their
junior and senior years.
"In high school we had shirts that said, 'Star t
a tradition, leave a legacy,' so it kind of carries
over to this," Currie said. "We've set the pace of
what we expect for the next generations."
Other players needed a recruiting visit to
be sold on the school, and Huston brought
players to Rice in groups to foster a sense of
camaraderie.
"Even on the [first] recruiting trip, ... we
were already talking in terms of, 'We're going
to do this,' almost as if we were already on the
team before we had even committed," stopper
Betsy Huete said.
Huston said it was important to consider
team chemistry when offering scholarships
to those who had visited.
"There were recruits that did come in that,
after their visit, we did not make an offer to,
because I felt they might hurt the team chem-
istry," Huston said. "When we recruit a player,
Rice has got to be the right place for them.
They've got to be happy about everything, not
just the soccer program."
Huete and midfielder Marisa Galvan, now
suitemates, bonded immediately on their
recruiting visit.
"It was hilarious, too, because we didn't
have any hosts," Galvan said. "We were taken
around by baseball boys and football boys. It
was exciting, because it was like, 'We can do
our own thing!'"
Trepidation joined excitement as the current
seniors arrived on campus in August 2001 to
begin college life.
The first preseason
The 10 seniors talk about the first preseason
in awed tones, postscripting each other's com-
ments with sympathetic murmurs.
"Obviously they made it hard because they
needed to prove a point that this was going to
be a strong program," Rellas said. "I just re-
member that first day when we ran that Cooper
[Fitness] Test, and only four of us made it. And
then right after that we did the hardest practice
of our lives, and all of us were like, 'What the
heck did we get ourselves into?"'
Although Rice's run to the 2003 WAC championship game
last-minute loss to SMU still lingers.
ERIC WILLIAMS/THRESHER
its finest hour, the pain of the 2-1
'We really try to instill in
every freshman class that
comes in how important it
is to he integrated with the
students.'
— Betsy Huete
Stopper
Only two of the team's 18 players had Divi-
sion I experience, and the first preseason set
the bar as both the most difficult and most
important experience in team history.
"As bad as preseason was, all it did was team
bonding, because we all suffered together,"
Currie said. "We'd all leave practice crying and
dehydrated and throwing up."
A sense of awe still surrounds the initial
preseason, and Shockley said she struggles to
maintain perspective when thinking about it.
"We talk about it all the time, and we can't
figure out if it was really that bad," Shockley said.
"Every year after, we've been like, 'Man, this
doesn't even compare to freshman preseason.'
We can't figure out if it was really that bad or
if we were just that unprepared for what we
were getting into."
Opening night magic
On a stormy night in August 2001, the
awestruck freshmen created magic at the Rice
Track/Soccer Stadium. Despite the weather,
1,752 fans watched the soccer team's debut,
and the game has become legendary in the
years since.
"I"here's something special where people
could come out and watch and we could experi-
ence our first game with the fans, because we had
actually never played before," Currie said.
The Owls got off to a dream start in just the
third minute, when Galvan cut inside from the
left wing to head home.a cross from then-fresh-
man midfielder Kelly Potysman, now playing at
TCU, for the first goal in program history.
"[ My personal high] is definitely scoring the
first goal, because it was just the best feeling
I've ever had in my life," Galvan said. "I feel like
no matter what happens, nothing and nobody
can ever take that away from me."
Army recovered from the erflotional
opening minutes and dominated most of the
half, tying the match 2-2. In the second half,
both teams lost their shape, and Army hit the
crossbar twice.
Although freshmen dominated the line-
up, then-junior captain Lindsay Botsford
(Wiess '02), a veteran of the Rice women's
soccer club, emerged from the chaos to set up
Anderson for the winning goal with one minute,
18 seconds remaining in the game.
Freshman year
The euphoria of opening-night success was,
like any student's first semester, tempered
by reality. The Owls dropped their next five
contests, including the first game of their
Western Athletic Conference schedule. The
team rebounded, however, with overtime wins
at San Jose State and at home against Hawaii
and won four of its last five regular-season
games to earn the second seed for the six-team
WAC tournament.
Galvan said the Owls' first-season success
was more a result of heart than skill.
"In the beginning, we did well and suc-
ceeded because we really did work hard
for each other and it really was this scrappy
play," Galvan said.
Goalkeeper Amanda Garrison, a surprise
starter, had to make at least eight saves in
half of Rice's 16 matches and set a school
record that still stands with 13 saves against
Fresno State.
"No one really thought much of us when we
came into the conference that first year because
we were all so young," Garrison said. "We actu-
ally ended up doing really well; it just made us
really excited for the next three years."
Rice dropped a 2-0 decision to Hawaii
in the WAC semifinals, the first of three WAC
tournament matches against the Rainbow
Wahine in three seasons.
Fitting in on campus
Without a negative predisposition toward
non-athletes, the freshmen assimilated them-
selves into the student body.
"We had the opportunity as freshmen to set
the tone of how the soccer team [was] going
to interact with the campus," Shockley said.
"People on other teams, like maybe on the
football team, they come here and the seniors
tell them, 'Oh, we don't talk to [non-athletes].'
We set the tone. ... It's just a way to conduct
yourself as a person, as a student at Rice."
Former club players Botsford, a former Stu-
dent Association president, and Natalie Nardec-
chia (Brown '03) encouraged the newcomers
to become involved in campus life.
"The thing I tried to emphasize most was
how important it was to be involved in their
colleges and outside of athletics, not only for
their benefit but also for the benefit of the team,
because we'll have more support for soccer if
everyone reaches out to friends they all have
in the colleges," Botsford said.
Lacking a built-in framework of an estab-
lished team, the players, all of whom lived
on-campus, allowed plenty of time to enjoy life
in the residential colleges.
"A lot of times when you come to a team, they
already have their little cliques formed and you
only talk with certain people," Yoder said. We
didn't have any of that, so ... it helped us make
other friendships with Rice students."
The soccer team's effort to be involved re-
sulted in vocal Friday night crowds of students
all four years.
"So many people on this team have friends
outside of sports and in other sports," forward
Janelle Crowley said. "Off the field, we try to
involve everybody and get ourselves involved.
I think people have this relationship with us
outside of soccer that makes them want to
come support us."
The players made a concerted effort to
be involved at their colleges and on campus,
driving around the Inner I>oop playing loud
music and campaigning outside of Willy's Pub
to attract fans.
"Everybody knows that there's this conflict
of athletes and non-athletes, and I think ... we
go out of our way to overcome that conflict and
burn that stereotype," Shockley said. "I just
want us to be the antithesis of the I stereotypi-
cal! athlete at the school."
As new players have come into the pro-
gram, the soccer team has maintained a closer
proximity to the student body than many
other teams, due in large part to the effort
of its seniors.
"It spontaneously happened freshman year,
but it's something that's definitely premeditated
[now]," Huete said. "As the classes go on, we
re;
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Gilbert, Lindsey & Yardley, Jonathan. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 92, No. 10, Ed. 1 Friday, October 29, 2004, newspaper, October 29, 2004; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth398502/m1/14/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.