Janessa Fowler is living her dream

Janessa Fowler wrote about her dream when she was in the third grade. She sketched it out in pencil on page 13 of her lined notebook, then later, in her best penmanship, carefully traced over it in indelible ink, putting a permanence to it, the work of a perfectionist.

It was standard handwriting paper, the kind used in elementary schools everywhere, two thick lines setting the upper and lower limits, a dotted line down the middle for guidance, nine horizontal roadways stacked on the page from top to bottom, taking an imagination wherever it wanted to go.

Each lower-case letter Fowler scripted that day in Colorado went right up to the dashed line, as was proper, a soccer player obeying the boundaries she'd been taught to work within.

But the upper-case letters? They strove for more, often breaking right through that upper barrier, their ambition matching the words they would come together to create, words becoming sentences, sentences filling a page, the page becoming prophecy.

"When I grow up I would like to be a professional soccer player. My soccer number would be number 9 like Mia Hamm. I would practice everyday in my backyard. My family would support me on the field. I would play the position the coach told me to. When it comes to soccer I always think my future is bright."

Fowler's stepmom sent her a photo of that page this week, a reminder that she's living that third-grader's dream as Fowler settles into life in Brisbane, Australia, where in two weeks she will play her first professional match for Eastern Suburbs FC in that country's National Premier League.

As Fowler advanced out of third grade and grew older, her goals shifted, coming back down a little closer to earth. She was certain she'd reached the pinnacle in August 2015 when she stepped foot on Montana's campus, officially a college soccer player.

Four full seasons later, she would stand as a senior with her teammates on Weber State's field in Ogden, Utah, with a Big Sky Conference championship trophy held overhead, the tournament MVP recalibrating and coming to a new conclusion: now this is as good as it will ever get.

"Wow, that's the best ending I could have ever imagined, winning a conference championship, getting a ring. I felt a lot of fulfillment. I left the season on a soccer high," Fowler said in December, before starting the journey to her new home.

"It kind of put the thought in my mind that I wanted to do this for longer."

It wasn't long after the Big Sky tournament had concluded in November 2018 that Fowler received an email from someone advising her to put herself up for the National Women's Soccer League draft.

She wasn't selected, but she did get invited to three tryouts. She accepted one of the offers and traveled to Salt Lake City with three dozen other players for a closed workout in front of coaches and representatives of the Utah Royals.

It was supposed to have the assembly-line look of the NFL combine, the players dressed in uniform outfits, where they'd played collegiately no longer of any importance. But it was cold that day in Salt Lake, so out came the cold-weather, team-issued gear.

"We were supposed to wear plain white shirts so you couldn't identify what schools everyone had played at. All of a sudden it's Pac-12, the ACC, schools from all over the country. And here's me from Montana," said Fowler. "It was a humbling experience but very cool. I surprised myself.

"When I first came to college, I was only thinking about playing college. That was my dream and I got to live that dream out. Being at the tryout was just an added bonus."

But it got her thinking. And she knew former Griz teammate Mackenzie Akins was having a successful professional career Down Under, so "I cast my net overseas and kind of got a hook from Australia."

The four-time Academic All-Big Sky Conference selection graduated last May with a degree in exercise physiology and was working as a tech on the surgical pediatric floor at St. Patrick Hospital, getting clinical hours to support her plan to one day go to physician assistant school.

That will always be there. Her playing career has an end date, and she knows it. And there is just something about the sport that she can't shake.

"Soccer is something I'm passionate about," Fowler said. "I can think I'm really loving something, then I have a soccer ball at my feet and it's like my eyes glaze over and there is nothing else I can see.

"I'm pretty academically inclined and want to chase that dream as well, but this is one that has an expiration date. It's kind of like now or never. This is the only time in my life I'll be able to chase this with everything I have."

Preseason practices began in January, opening weekend is Feb. 22, with the season going through August, more spaced out than the concentrated schedule she was used to at Montana, which she once thought was as good and as big as it could get.

"Now everything is an added benefit," she says. "Everything I get to experience, breaking into a lineup, playing minutes, being in a different country, training, wearing a different uniform is something I never thought would happen."

Until the photo arrived this week, an image of her written-out dream from the third grade, reminding her that she's been thinking this would happen for a long, long time.

University of Montana Athletics

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