The Craig Hall Chronicles :: Reeve Borseth

Reeve Borseth had to travel from her hometown of Marysville, Wash., to Missoula to finally find herself. If not in the metaphysical sense, then coming across, for the first time in her life, another person actually named Reeve.

It's got a good backstory, that name, how Kristin Borseth read Reeve Lindbergh's children's book "If I'd Known Then What I Know Now," first to Addie, then to Cole, then to Mitchell to some pretty successful results.

Addie, who got married two weeks ago (WHOOP! WHOOP!), is a Washington State grad and a second-grade teacher in Edmonds, while Cole and Mitchell are both engineers, the former in Edmonds, the latter in Seattle.

Cole (recently engaged, WHOOP! WHOOP!) also graduated from Washington State, where he was on the rowing team. Mitchell is a graduate of Gonzaga. That's Reeve Lindbergh, laying down some serious groundwork.

So, when No. 4 came along, it was a natural fit: Reeve. Reeve Borseth.

She's had hundreds of teammates on the soccer field over the years, just as many classmates. She's gone up against hundreds of opponents and if she ever heard, "Reeve!," only one person ever needed to turn her head.

She was a one and only, at least in her world, until she moved to Missoula last month and found herself at a beach location she won't reveal on an undisclosed river, taken there and sworn to secrecy by Camellia Xu, and she heard an unfamiliar voice call out, "Reeve!"

She and one other person, a little girl, turned their heads to see who was calling them. What are the odds?

"It was crazy. It was the first person I've ever heard with my name," she says. "I was like, no way, it's got to be Bree or something. And it was at the most random spot ever. It was a crazy moment for me but a pretty cool sign."

If she can thank her mom for her name, she can thank her as well for being a first-year member of the Montana soccer team. If Reeve had had her way, she, well, she wouldn't be here, playing Division I soccer. Her ceiling wouldn't have been set nearly as high.

She had outgrown Maryville's Pilchuck Soccer Alliance years before and was now playing for the Greater Seattle Surf Soccer Club. She had bigger dreams, loftier goals, things only a higher-level club could help her reach, help her accomplish. She knew it but was still riddled with doubts.

Pac Northwest? Eastside? Seattle United? Crossfire? Those were clubs for other players, the kind she wanted to become but wondered if she ever could. They were in a league of their own, players she wanted to join but was hesitant to take the brave step to try to join them. Too much personal risk.

So, Kristin did what the best moms do. She listened to her daughter's argument – Tukwila is too far away, the girls are too good, I'm going to get cut and that would be the worst thing ever – then scheduled a tryout with Pac Northwest anyway.

"She had more belief in me than I had in myself," says Reeve, who proceeded to do what so many kids would have done in that situation. She tried to sabotage her mom's efforts. She hoped to break her, force her to throw her hands in the air and say, I give up. You win.

Shin guards? Oops, Reeve forgot to pack them. So, Kristin stopped on the way to Tukwila and bought some. Ball? Oops again. Forgot that too. Another stop. "She made my drive down there miserable," says Kristin. "She was a brat.

"She was not happy, but I told her, you're going to try out for an ECNL team because that's where you want to be and need to play."

Mother knows best, per usual. The field was full of good soccer players, all battling it out for two available spots on Pac Northwest's ECNL squad. Reeve regrouped, showed everyone the kind of player she had become and aced the exam. On the drive home: validation.

"The coach called her in the car," says Kristin. "'Hey, this is Coach Josh, would you like to be on our team?'" Instead of squealing in delight at the opportunity and accepting it on the spot, she let her fears take back over. She let Josh know she had to think about it. Could she have 30 minutes?

She wanted this, so badly, but was she good enough? This was the deep end, this was the big time, everything she had worked for had paid off. But she was still looking for an out, a reason to play it safe, an excuse to give it a pass. She wasn't going to find one in the car.

"I'm like, oh my gosh, Reeve, are you kidding?" says Kristin. "Luckily she accepted and loved every minute of being with that team. She made some really great friends."

Great friends who were future Division I players themselves. On the back line with her at Pac Northwest were Lexi Lerwick, now a freshman defender at Washington State, and Ella Hatteberg, a freshman defender at Arizona.

The player who didn't think she measured up did just fine.

No wonder Pac Northwest won Surf Cup in 2019. No wonder Borseth made an ODP regional team and played at a national event in Florida. This was more Dr. Seuss than Reeve Lindbergh: "Oh, the Places You'll Go."

"My mom literally had to force me to go to that tryout," says Reeve. "'This is Pac Northwest, Mom, I'm not going to make it!' She took me and I'll be forever grateful for her doing that. I would not be here."

She would not have been at that ID camp, one of two put on every year by Pac Northwest for college coaches to come check out the top talent the Seattle area has to offer.

It's a two-day event Montana coach Chris Citowicki puts on his calendar in ink, then highlights. Other coaches do as well, but few do what Citowicki does beforehand, which reveals another element of his recruiting success.

It's not something many other coaches, who sign up to work with the oldest teams, want to do: he asks the club directors to put him in front of the their youngest ECNL squads.

"I'm already recruiting those kids who are the oldest. I've done that work," he says. He wants players of the age who might be drawn to a coach over the name of the school that happens to be on his shirt. That's his in. That's his edge.

If he can get in front of them for an hour, when they see him again down the road, they don't think "Montana," they think, hey, there's that coach I really liked. It levels the recruiting playing field. It's no longer school against school. It's coach against coach, and he likes his chances when that happens.

"I want the relationship, before they know what a Stanford is, what a UCLA is," he says. "Maybe they do anyway, but if they come across me at camp, maybe they think, I like that guy. I'd like to play for him one day. For them, it's still a blank slate and I can set the image early.

"If I can get in front of them and show them the type of coach and guy I am, they'll remember me and just might come here. You keep watching them over time, and if they are doing well, you recruit them and try to close the deal."

It works the other way as well. Instead of sitting on the sideline at an event and watching the players on the field and strictly evaluating talent, he gets to interact with the players in a more intimate, personal setting.

Both sides are feeling out the other. That's how he landed Kayla Rendon Bushmaker, who later turned down Power 5 overtures to stick with Montana. It's how he landed Borseth. And Maddie Ditta. And Bella O'Brien.

"It's about getting to know the person. Is this someone I want to work with long-term, and Reeve instantly stood out, in one hour," he says. "I got to know Kayla the same way. Ditta, Bella, next thing you know, here they are."

It works because he doesn't lord his title or his status as a Division I coach over them. He puts them at ease, when everything inside of them is screaming otherwise.

"During an ID camp, you're stressed and pressured because you have all these coaches deciding or not if they want you to go to their school," says Borseth.

"Chris said, 'I know you guys are going to be scared, I know you guys are going to be nervous.' That's something he does a really good job of, understanding the situation we're in. He makes you feel like you can play comfortably and not be stressed out every time you have the ball. That's what I wanted."

Kristin adds, "Chris was the biggest part of this. He sold her, hook, line and sinker. He was a good match for her as a coach, what she was used to."

Because coaches have always played a major role in Borseth's development, from the time she was in fourth grade and starting with Pilchuck Soccer Alliance, when other kids her age had already been getting coached for years.

She was behind, noticeably so, until coach Kelly Jay got ahold of her, took her under her wing and set her on the path that has led her to Montana.

"She was the one who challenged her and taught her all of her foot skills and gave her so much confidence," says Kristin. "She was a real mentor to her and a great influence."

But Borseth outgrew the club. Over three years she went from the bottom of the ladder, sitting on the bench and watching better players get a bulk of the minutes to being the player the coaches couldn't take off the field.

Now she needed a new challenge, and someone had to tell Jay. "That was a really hard conversation," says Kristin. They opted next for the Greater Seattle Surf Soccer Club, based down the 5 and 405 from Marysville, in Bothell.

Again: the doubts. I'm not good enough, am I?

"She was so worried she wasn't going to make that team. The first night she was down on the field for tryouts, she had her hair in a really high bun," says Kristin. "The coach immediately came to her and said, 'Are you going to try out anywhere else? Please don't. I want you on my team.'"

Her game overcame her internal doubts, unable to be held down by any lack of belief in herself. "Bun Girl," as they called her, had found a new home.

Some players would have given up on their school teams by now and gone all in on club. Not Borseth, who starred at Archbishop Murphy High School. She was a three-year captain and the Washington Class 2A Player of the Year as a senior when she led the Wildcats to a 23-0 record and a state title.

Again, it was all about the coach, this time Mike Bartley.

"I was so lucky with my high school team. He was so dedicated to us," Borseth, a center back who played midfield for that team, says. "I remember before my freshman year, he came to my club games to watch me. He always had so much support to give. He's a huge reason I played all four years.

"That really helped with me being a team leader. It was a great experience for me."

Would Kristin have pictured all of this, a soccer player, a Division I soccer player at that, coming into her life after a volleyball player (Addie), a rower (Cole) and a golfer (Mitchell)?

"No, but whatever my kids wanted to do sports-wise, I would do anything to make it happen for them," says the kindergarten teacher. "When she did find this interest in soccer, I was all for it. She knew what she wanted and worked really hard to get it.

"I always said I was not going to be that crazy soccer mom. My kids told me, well, you turned into her. I'd like to think I didn't. I did drive her a long distance to do what she loved. Let's use the word supportive instead, because that's what I felt like I was."

Reeve took her lumps and had plenty of setbacks along the way, which makes the journey from fourth grade in Marysville to freshman year at Montana all the more special.

She started out with EDP, Elite Player Development, starter kit for the Olympic Development Program, as an eighth grader. She made the state pool but not the travel team. So, she tried again the next year.

This time she made it, played at the regional tournament in Arizona, got selected for the regional team and traveled to play in Florida at nationals.

"She's a girl coming from here and nobody even knows who she is. She didn't have the in that the Pac Northwest girls did. That was really hard, but she showed them she could play," says Kristin.

"The next year she made that team, then went from there to playing ODP, then the nationals team and playing in Florida. She just kind of kept going. She's one of those who just doesn't give up."

That's who Citowicki saw, the player he would come to know as Nike Headband Girl. He still has the emails, with subject lines like NIKE HEADBAND GIRL WANTS TO PLAY FOR MONTANA.

It wasn't an alter ego, just a way of doing her own hook-line-and-sinker bit.

"We had gone to a presentation with her club soccer team where they talked to the girls about how to present yourself to coaches if you want to play at the Division I level," says Kristin.

"You have to have something catchy. She came up with Nike Headband Girl. That was her way of promoting herself. That got her what she needed."

She was hooked on Montana. Mom? Not so much. "I wanted her to go someplace warm," Kristin says. But for Reeve's sake or for hers? "Mine. Pepperdine sounded really good to me. We don't have the best weather here."

Mother and daughter traveled to Montana during the COVID shutdown. Reeve had arranged to purchase an Australian Labradoodle in Rollins, on the west shore of Flathead Lake. They looped down and checked out campus and Missoula when both were at their most glorious.

Seeing trips to Malibu slipping away, Kristin later sent her mom and sister, along with Reeve, to Missoula in the dead of winter, just so she could see what she was getting herself into. While Reeve's teams in Seattle would have been outside, Citowicki and the Grizzlies were on the basketball court inside.

"I wanted her to see the seasons," says Kristin. Did it work? Did it get her daughter thinking sun, sand and Southern California? "Not one bit."

She consoles herself these days with Ollie, the Montana pup, who remained in Marysville when Reeve headed to Missoula last month, a piece of Montana staying in her grasp while the last of her children left home for it.

Borseth has a good news-bad news situation in her first year with the Grizzlies. She gets to learn from some of the Big Sky Conference's best center backs, upperclassmen like Allie Larsen, Molly Quarry and Charley Boone.

They are also the bad news, because there are only so many minutes to be had at a position that oftentimes doesn't see a lot of in-match substitutions.

"She has Larsen, Charley, Quarry in front of her, but talk about mentorship. She is lucky that way," says Citowicki, who had some of his best advice for Borseth down in Florida at a national ECNL event a while back.

"Chris came to one of my games, then we went and had coffee with him after and he gave me a bunch of tips," says Borseth. "One of his top tips was my communication needs to be better. My whole senior year, that's one thing I worked on."

Yes, that's the girl who didn't think she was good enough to make the Seattle Surf, who didn't want to get into the car when her mom said they were heading down the road for a tryout with Pac Northwest, at practice with the Grizzlies the last two weeks, directing traffic on the field in front of her.

"I wasn't expecting that. You can hear her organizing these players who are so much older than she is and telling them what to do," says Citowicki.

"I was expecting a good distributor, someone who knows when to hold an offside line and when to drop, just a smart player. I didn't realize there was communication involved in that too. There is a quiet confidence there that is pretty impressive."

If only she'd known then what she's come to learn about herself now.

"At first it was a little scary. Should I be yelling at these older players? I've got to remember that I'm here to do my role, and my role is communicating. It doesn't matter if it's a senior," she says.

"This team understands we all have to do our job. It really helps me telling other people where to go. It keeps me calm. It keeps me under control."

Kristin wasn't sure how this was all going to play out. And we mean as recently as last month. She's seen the doubts before and this was a time that was made for them to fester, to flower, to overwhelm a girl.

She and Reeve were staying at the Doubletree in Missoula, hanging out together, soaking up every last moment before mom would be leaving daughter to make her own way.

"She was having a really hard time saying goodbye to me. That was really hard. She was savoring those last moments," Kristin says. "I thought, okay, this could be a little tricky."

She was thinking there might be multiple phone calls every day, mom as psychologist, cheerleader, biggest supporter. Then Reeve headed off and started her new life and had no need to look back.

"I haven't heard from her hardly at all. I'm getting TikToks of her singing in the car with Eliza (Bentler). I'm getting axe-throwing videos. I'm getting her singing down in the lounge with the football boys," she says.

There is another Reeve Lindbergh book Kristin might need to put on her own nightstand: "The Circle of Days." Nobody knows better than she does how her daughter made it from there to here, what it took, what she overcame. "Now I'm feeling kind of sad," she says, "but I'm happy that she's happy."

University of Montana Athletics

Related News

Players Mentioned

Charley Boone

Reeve Borseth

Maddie Ditta

Allie Larsen

Bella O'Brien

Molly Quarry

Kayla Rendon Bushmaker

Camellia Xu

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