The Craig Hall Chronicles :: Maycen Slater

"X xxxxx xxxx xxxx xxxxxxx xxxx xxxx. Xx xxxx xx xx xxxxx xx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxx, xx xx x xxxxxxxxx, xx xx x xxxxxx xxx xxxxx xxxx xxx xxxxxx xx xxxxx xx x xxxxxx. Xxxx xxxx xxxx xx xxxxx xxxxx? Xxxxx. X xxxxx xxxx."

That's Maycen Slater, Montana's soon-to-be high-scoring 9, spelling out in detail what her goal is for this upcoming season, what the plan is for the next four years. It's bold, it's ambitious, it's un-freshman-like. And that's why it's been redacted. She's confident, driven. She doesn't need any external pressure.

It's why she hit it off right from the start with Griz coach Chris Citowicki, two big dreamers whose default setting is: Why not? Why can't Montana go unbeaten in league in consecutive seasons, become the only team to win the Big Sky outright three straight years? Why can't a girl score 60+ goals as a U17 player?

Two peas, same pod. "Her goals are crystal clear. This is what I want to accomplish," says Citowicki. "Her goals may sound crazy, but I'm crazy. I work really hard and believe in things and I accomplish them all the time.

"When you tell me you want to achieve something, you know what? I believe you. If I didn't believe you, I'd tell you that's too ambitious. In her case, why not? I don't see what's holding her back."

So, anyway, you've been warned in advance. Maycen Slater is coming, she's coming in a big way.

They first connected via email, hers to him, this Canadian reaching out and getting right to the point. I've scored 42 goals in 49 matches (hello!) and Ryan Clark said I should contact Montana (double hello!).

That kind of production? That will catch the eye of any college coach. That she had been anointed by Ryan Clark, the guy who sent to the Grizzlies both Camellia Xu and Molly Quarry, themselves B.C.-ers? This Citowicki had to see.

He dropped everything, clicked on the videos Slater had linked and, after picking up his jaw from the floor, asked of no one in particular: Can we get these videos removed? He didn't want anyone else seeing them. Slater was that good. And Citowicki doesn't like sharing, at least not in this situation.

"Oh, my goodness," Citowicki recalls thinking. "If we can get a kid like that, I'd be pretty happy." And he has been, having coached Slater, an early enrollee, since January, starting her at the 9 on Monday against Calgary. As a freshman.

"She has a soccer IQ that is pretty high. The way she trains on her own, the way she sees the game, the questions that she asks. She's clearly been coached by somebody who knows what they are talking about."

Welcome to the story Mark Slater, Maycen's dad and longtime coach (it's never Maycen at home, instead one syllable Mayce or two-syllable Maycee), a guy who's got a soccer journey of his own worth telling, just as his own dad has, and since Maycen is their soccer spin-off, we best go back in time a bit.

Chris Slater was good, so good with his feet, especially in the close, tightly contested space in front of goal, six yards and in, growing up in Nottingham, England, catching the eye again and again of Nottingham Forest's scouts but never quite making the jump from top prospect to the real thing.

Then, life started, those decades ago, kids arriving, working for the railway and its intermittent paychecks, his sister going to western Canada on vacation, meeting her husband, staying, then waving her brother and his family over, including 3-year-old Mark, work aplenty to be had in their new home.

Father would pass on his love of soccer to the boy, everything he knew about being a striker, about scoring goals, that thing that would become the family skill, passing on from generation to generation, the latest, greatest version now wearing Grizzly maroon.

It was a different time, before youth sports became serious business, Mark meeting his best friend whenever time would allow, sometimes other neighborhood boys showing up as well, at the soccer field sitting right across the street from the Slater home.

"There was no extra training back then. You played for your club team two or three times per week, then we'd meet before school, after school, sometimes just the two of us, sometimes eight of us. We'd just play until it got dark," he says, not a coach to be found anywhere telling them what to do.

So, they just made it up as they went along, childhood sport at its finest and most pure. "There is a certain freedom to that. You try things you might not try in front of a coaching staff because of a fear of a mistake. For weeks, we practiced bicycle kicks. You don't do that in a structured setting.

"Today it's different. Club soccer, private coaching, private academies. The list goes on and on. Those things weren't available. We'd grab a sack of balls from the garage and go play for a few hours."

And he was probably a better player because of it, three times getting invited to attend camp at Canada's national training center, enrolling at Simon Fraser and leading the team in scoring his final three seasons, 36 goals in 54 total games played, including a four-goal performance.

He was a player but more than that, he was a baller, an advanced designation born from all those hours spent with the boys, no one else instructing them how it should be done, soccer as joy, soccer as play, never a chore, even as he competed at Terry Fox Secondary in lacrosse, basketball, rugby.

"Soccer for us was everything. Our family lived and breathed it. Other sports always came second," he says.

What he pulled off that day in the late 90s, when Simon Fraser was competing against the Vancouver 86ers, a team then competing in the American Professional Soccer League, reveals everything a person might need to know about Mark Slater, the player, the natural, the produce of that environment.

He scored off a free kick with his right foot, leaving the coaches of the 86ers wondering who this guy was. Later in the match, taking a free kick with his left foot, he drilled it off the crossbar, leaving the coaches of the 86ers saying, we need this guy. So, they signed him.

He got some games with the senior national team, played for Canada's U23 team at the World University Games in Japan. "It was never really the plan. I just did the right things at the right time," he says, giving us a segue into his own family's story.

It wasn't plan to meet Kelli, but when this girl in Math 11 at Terry Fox Secondary was sitting in the front row, this beauty who stopped him in his tracks, he told the fellas to take their usual spot at the back of the room without him. He had to go see about a girl, the right person at the right time.

They got married, had two girls. And it should go without saying that Maycen was the second. "My oldest is a model citizen. One of the kindest people you'll meet. When Mayce came, she …" he pauses here, making sure he says the right thing … "she had a more aggressive personality.

"I think that's more typical of a second child. She had to learn to do things on her own a little more. She had a very competitive attitude right from the start. I kind of knew she was going to be a great athlete. She was doing things around the house that I didn't think was normal for her age."

They found an outlet, a little summer soccer league for kids 3, 4, maybe 5. Maycen took the ball and went around the other kids like they were nothing more than practice cones. She was not yet 4. "Kelli texted me, ah, I think you might want to come have a look at this," Mark recalls.

He's a chiropractor these days, Mark is, and there is no good way to segue into that except that it's its own soccer-related story, how he was in a car accident shortly before he was scheduled to travel to Edmonton for a tryout with an indoor team, how he needed to get better fast.

He visited his doctor, who told him she was going to set him up with a physical therapist. He pleaded with her. Wasn't there a faster way back to health, a path that would allow him to go through with the tryout? Wasn't there some sort of Move Ahead 5 Spaces card he could draw from the deck of options?

"She said, in that case, I'm going to send you to a chiropractor," he recalls. "My first thought was, don't you want everybody to get better as fast as possible?"

It was more than just an enlightening. A career was started that day, with Slater attending University of Western States in Portland, then partnering up with the guy who got him ready in time for the tryout, each with his own practice under the same roof, nearly 30,000 patient files piling up since 2001.

His job gave him the flexibility to coach both of his daughters, all that soccer knowledge that started in Nottingham going from father to son, father to daughters.

"He's coached me since I was 4 years old, so basically everything I know how to do now is from him," says Maycen. "He scored more goals than I'll ever score, so I trusted he knew what to do in those moments."

The family started in Pitt Meadows, later moved to Coquitlam. It was closer to soccer, closer to his clinic and gave the girls the opportunity to go to Terry Fox Secondary, same as mom and dad, the four of them taught by some of the same teachers, Mark's basketball coach later Maycen's guidance counselor.

The school started as Port Coquitlam Senior Secondary, was named Terry Fox Secondary in 1986 for a 1976 graduate and one of the most famous and inspiring Canadians ever, with the school seeming to be trying to live up to its namesake. "It's such a special place, we wanted both kids to go there," says Mark.

In her 10th-grade year alone, she was on the Langley United team that traveled to Sweden, to Denmark, to England, where they were hosted by Manchester City's academy, then returned the favor by knocking off Man City's U16 team, then a host of others who wanted to see what this team was all about.

It was Langley United, with dad coaching, daughter scoring, one, two goals per match with regularity, that won back-to-back provincial championships in the BC Soccer Premier League, went undefeated three seasons in a row, had the best players from other teams looking on with envy, some joining.

"No clubs in the league I played in were going to Man City, were getting opportunities to go to Spain," says Maycen. "No one had those next-level opportunities my dad provided us. It's because of how good of a coach he was, our style of play and the level he held us to.

"We had the best players from around the league come to our team because they heard how good our coach was. He put so much time and effort into our training sessions. We did film sessions. I never heard of a youth coach doing those sorts of things."

The result was the player who Citowicki saw in the videos that day in his office, the day he knew he needed Slater on his team, a difference-making 9 who could take his program to another level, and why were those videos still available for every other college coach to see?

COULD SOMEONE PLEASE TAKE THEM DOWN???

"She's determined in the box to score goals," says Mark. "She lives to score goals. She's a little different player from myself, just like I was a little different from my dad.

"My dad, I remember watching him when he was 30 years old, he'd still dribble around everybody. Most of his goals were scored around the six-yard box. Most of my goals were scored from 20-plus yards, and I scored a ton of goals with my head.

"Maycee is a combination of the two of us. She can score from distance but her greatest asset is she can find ways to get in behind defenders and make the right runs at the right time. She scores a lot of goals doing that."

She's probably here and not burned out on the sport, instead just starting to truly take flight, because the level she reached, and is going to reach, was never forced upon her, never set up as an expectation. It was her dad's initial love for the sport influencing his parenting.

"I've always told her, this is your career, take it as far as you want to and we'll support you," he says. "On the flip side, if you don't want to go that far, you don't have to. What's most important is you enjoy the sport. There has never been any pressure from us. We left it up to her where she wanted to take it."

Where she wanted to take it was to the U.S., Division I women's soccer, but where to begin?

Enter: Ryan Clark, who oversees college placement for Vancouver Whitecaps FC, who sent Xu and Quarry to Montana, who knows what kind of experience they had playing and growing in Citowicki's program.

"We have had good success with our top provincial players and UM in previous years, so it's great to continue that bridge," Clark wrote over the weekend. "I knew Maycen was ready for the opportunity as she has the foundation in place to succeed.

"Her parents are both former top athletes, each serving as great mentors. From a younger age, Maycen put in the work both on and off the field to ensure her athletic ability would be ready on arrival, the final checkbox being that she has always been known as a high-quality teammate."

Mark Slater had known Clark for two decades, so once his daughter showed a strong enough interest in going to the U.S. for college, he invited Clark over to set the wheels in motion.

She laid out her goals, of finding a program that wins a lot, that plays a style that would fit her skill-set. He gave her a list of schools to start with, including Montana. "I don't know if I would have ended up at Montana if it wasn't for him," Slater says.

She had ongoing conversations with maybe 15 schools, had offers from at least five but, as so many of these Craig Hall Chronicles reveal, there is only one Chris Citowicki.

"What he had to say was so intriguing and his passion and energy for the program was so much different. Over the phone, on our Zoom calls, the PowerPoint he put together, he's so good at recruiting," she says.

"I was so intrigued by what he had to offer me playing-time-wise, his goals and dreams for me in the program. That was a big sway for me. Also, the family. As he always says, I recruit the player and their family," and that's like catnip for a girl who's had no separation between family and soccer, really ever.

Citowicki didn't know what might be the thing that ultimately landed Slater, so he asked Xu, back home in Port Moody, to make the few-miles trip to visit the Slater home, let Maycen know what it means to play for the Grizzlies.

"She had such amazing things to say about the program and the city of Missoula," Mark says. "I'm of the opinion that if something is right, why delay it? Let's make a decision and get ready to play there."

It's how she became the rare recruit who commits sight unseen, but when you know, you know. "My mom said, maybe we need to think this through. My dad and I were, nope, this is what we want," says Maycen. "We had that gut feeling that this was going to be the right choice and it definitely was."

It's not only Citowicki who recruits point to and say, I want to be around THAT person. There is also Ashley Herndon, who totaled 37 goals and 27 assists as a four-time all-region player at James Madison, who was with the Portland Thorns, who played overseas.

She's someone who's been there, done that and done that at the level most players who come to Montana aspire to. "That's such a big draw for the forwards we're getting now," says Citowicki. Slater confirms. "Knowing Coach Ash and knowing her background was really important to me as well."

She committed, then made her first visit to campus and to Missoula, fully showing her hand when Citowicki walked the family by the Coyle Family Recovery Room and told Maycen about Alexa Coyle, one of only three players in Montana's top 10 list of career scorers who have played since 2000.

"Her first question was, how many goals did she score? How many goals did she score as a freshman? That drives her," says Citowicki. (Note to Maycen: Coyle scored four as a freshman, had 19 for her career.)

It was just her new coach getting a taste of what her former coach, her lifelong coach, her dad, has seen in his daughter for years.

"She has way more drive and determination and love and passion for the sport than I ever had," he says. "If I had had that passion, maybe I could have gone further in the sport. She is very motivated."

Slater arrived in January to get a head-start on her college career and had her welcome-to-Division-I moment about two minutes later, courtesy of Charley Boone, training with the team over the spring semester as she prepared for her own next big thing. Move aside, freshman.

Openings Slater was used to having were nowhere to be found, easy looks rarely coming her way. She was challenged everywhere she turned.

"I almost felt like I had maxed out my opportunities and level of play at home. I scored over 60 goals in my U17 youth career. It just showed I was ready for another competition level," she says.

"I was so used to scoring one to two goals per game, now why am I not scoring in practice? I had some conversations with Ash and she told me we have some of the best defenders and goalkeepers in the nation." Indeed.

"We knew it was going to be a whole new level," says her dad, "multiple levels up. She'd talk to us, I'm playing against (Ally 'Ricky' Henrikson) every day in training and she's the best center back in the conference.

"Well, that's probably by design. If you can have some success against Ricky, you can probably have success against anybody. She knows it's not going to come easy and that it will take time. I think she's ready to put the work in to make it happen."

That's exactly why Citowicki wanted Slater to enroll early, to get that out of the way, those months of February, March and April serving as both advanced learning and the foundation for a launching pad.

"The college game is so physical. She's not physically where she'll be in a couple years' time, but you can tell there is so much potential, it's crazy," Citowicki says. "There is something about her that I'm really excited about. She has that knack for being in the right place at the right time."

And she'll always have her goals, like after college, going to University of Western States to become a chiropractor, to one day take over her dad's clinic, joining forces with her sister, who is on her way to getting a degree in naturopathic medicine. She's had that planned out since the sixth grade.

But she's always been goal-driven. "I've always had high standards. My goals are a little bit lofty for this season, but I think I can do it. Coach Chris said, I'm not tweaking them because I think you can do it."

And when they both believe, these two dreamers who love to think big, who are wired to say, why not? This could be good. This could be really good. No need to hide it.

University of Montana Athletics

Players Mentioned

Charley Boone

Maycen Slater

Related Videos