Lauren Robertson is living the best of both worlds
5/29/2012 12:00:00 AM | Soccer
May 29, 2012
With the clock winding down and her team holding a one-goal advantage, Lauren Robertson looks toward the other end of the field and makes eye contact with Hope Solo, who is manning the net for the other team. Robertson winks.
Just nine months ago Solo, as goalkeeper of the national team, was the face of soccer in the U.S., and now for 86 minutes Robertson has outplayed her. Robertson's team leads 2-1.
Rushing up the field toward Robertson and looking for the equalizer are two players with names almost as famous as Solo's: Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan, two other stars from the U.S. team that finished a memorable second to Japan at last summer's Women's World Cup in Germany.
Montana's goalkeeper coach steels herself. She is about to face an onslaught from some of the best soccer players in the world. She smiles, because she's been waiting for this chance her entire life.
And then she wakes up; or does she?
Two months ago this situation only could have happened in Robertson's dreams. Next Monday in Tukwila, Wash., at the Starfire Sports Complex, it could become reality when Robertson's Colorado Rapids face Solo, Rapinoe and Morgan's Seattle Sounders.
Lauren Robertson had moved on. After a four-year career at Ohio State and a fifth season spent with the Buckeyes as a student assistant coach, Robertson last summer transitioned from player to full-time coach when she was hired by Mark Plakorus.
It was a decision, Robertson says, that was based a lot on cold, hard facts and very little on romanticism. "Sometimes you have to face reality. I wanted to continue playing, because I feel like I still can, but the fact of the matter is there are not that many places to play, and at some point you need to start making a living."
And it's often the "making a living" part that finally puts an end to any serious consideration of ever seriously playing the games of youth again.
In her first season Robertson -- with her work with Montana's goalkeepers -- played a large role in turning the Grizzlies into Big Sky Conference tournament champions and an NCAA tournament team for the first time since 2000.
Montana made the four-team Big Sky tournament, and Robertson's disciple, Kristen Hoon, allowed just two goals in 220 minutes in a pair of draws at the tournament and guided the Grizzlies to a pair of shootout victories.
A week later Hoon made a career-high 10 saves against Stanford in the opening round of the NCAA tournament while allowing three goals, a noteworthy effort against a team that averaged more than 2.8 per match for the season on its way to the national championship.
With only one senior lost from last year's team, it was a calm spring for the Grizzly coaching staff. That is until Robertson received an unexpected phone call from the Colorado Rapids' goalkeeper coach.
"He said he'd heard a lot about me, and that he wanted me to play for them (this summer)," Robertson recalled recently.
The short initial conversation ignited a spark that once again set to blazing Robertson's passion to play.
It was exciting, but in 99 cases out of 100, that would have been the end of it. A brief flush of I've Still Got It pride, followed by a period of dissecting every possible What If scenario. All eventually trumped by the new reality: She was a coach now with year-round professional responsibilities and no longer a player.
There were summer camps to prepare for and run, recruiting, planning sessions for next season. Robertson made up her mind: If she could only do one or the other, it would have to be coaching, because as she says, "You've got to have a job." The chance to play would just have to go to someone else.
Enter Plakorus, whose surname is (possibly) Greek for "he who turns the improbable into reality" and, fortunately for Robertson, is one of the 100 who has the ability to see things differently than the other 99.
Six months after leading his very first team to a title few were expecting, Plakorus listened to Robertson's opportunity, mulled it over and ultimately made the decision few coaches would have: He gave his assistant the green light to pursue her dream.
Just do it, Plakorus -- always true to the Swoosh -- told Robertson, despite the inconvenience it would be for the rest of the staff being one coach down for the summer.
"I was shocked, because I don't know of any other coach that would have allowed it. To say I was thankful would be an understatement," said Robertson, who will be back in Missoula in time for the Grizzlies' opening fall practice, job intact.
"I get to live both my dreams. I've always told people that I'm going to be a pro soccer player and that I'm going to coach Division I soccer. Now I get to do both at the same time. It's the best of both worlds.
"To work for someone who understood how much this opportunity meant to me, for him to basically say, `Go for it,' I can't even begin to express how excited I was. It's awesome."
Plakorus is not one to get caught up in the intoxicating power of the HEAD COACH sign of his door at the expense of the ASSISTANT COACHES who work for him. And though he's been coaching at the collegiate level the last 13 years, he is still a soccer player at heart.
"I know Lauren has a passion for the playing, so to have this opportunity I thought was pretty special," he said.
To Plakorus it is a win-win situation. Robertson will have an opportunity to fulfill her dream of playing at the nation's highest level while at the same time becoming a better coach.
"Part of my role as a head coach isn't just to help the players. It's to help the coaches in their development, and this is a great opportunity for Lauren's development," Plakorus added.
"Now that Lauren has had a year of college coaching, she'll be able to be around a different environment with the Rapids and see some different types of coaching, and she might be able to bring some things back that will help us.
"Plus it gets our program out there and gets us some publicity and lets people in the soccer world know we're around and doing some good things up here."
Robertson departed Missoula for Colorado in early May. After training camp in Winter Park, the Rapids -- in their first year of existence -- opened the season Saturday with a 3-0 victory over the Victoria Highlanders.
Robertson, who was invited to the U.S. national team's U16 training camp in 2004 and was drafted in the fifth round of the 2010 Women's Professional Soccer draft by the Washington Freedom, started in goal and played all 90 minutes, collecting 13 saves and the shutout victory.
The W-League, which is heavily tilted toward the East Coast -- in number of squads, though not necessarily in talent -- is made up of 30 teams.
The eight teams in the W-League's Western Division -- the Rapids, Colorado Rush, Pali (Calif.) Blues, Santa Clarita (Calif.) Blue Heat, Los Angeles Strikers, Seattle Sounders, Victoria Highlanders, Vancouver Whitecaps -- will play each other twice in a regular-season schedule that goes through mid-July.
The Sounders -- playing the role of the Miami Heat -- have six national team players on their roster, mostly dropdowns from the now defunct WPS.
Any playoff games added to the Rapids' schedule would extend the season into late July and have Robertson returning to Missoula just days before the start of fall camp for the Grizzlies.
"Lauren is going to miss out on a lot of what we do this summer, but I think the value of this experience is going to be worth it," Plakorus said.
"There are going to be a lot more summers to do camps and recruiting, but the opportunity to play does not come around very often. When you have it, you may as well take a shot at it."
Next fall when the Rapids' season is done and when she's back to being a fulltime coach and once again the dreams of protecting her goal fire up, Robertson will, upon waking, remain pragmatic while also allowing for the possibility of another out-of-the-blue phone call that ignites a whole new round of possibilities.
Because Hope Solo can't play forever.
"You never know," Robertson said. "There is always the hope that something more could come of it. You never know who's watching you play. It would make for a difficult choice, because I love what I do at Montana."
