December 6, 2006 ISU SOCCER PLAYERS' YES JOURNALS The following are travel journals from Sarah Whiteley and Amanda Gogel about their time in Raleigh, North Carolina during the women's NCAA College Cup. Whiteley, Gogel, Meaghan Gaffney and Alyssa Ramsey accompanied head coach Vernon Croft and helped with the Youth Education through Sports (YES) clinics held during last weekends' NCAA championships. Friday, December 1 - Sarah Whiteley On Our Way to the Women’s Soccer Final Four in Raleigh, North Carolina I barely fell asleep for maybe an hour when my alarm went off at 3:30 a.m. I picked up all the girls (Alyssa, Gaffs, and Shorty) and we headed to Coach’s house, where we then hopped in his car and headed towards the Indianapolis Airport. Our flight took off from Indy a little before 7 a.m. as we headed up to Detroit for a layover where we encountered lots of turbulence and a little face-to-face action with some barf bags. The flight from Detroit to Raleigh was much smoother, but the first flight remained in our minds (and stomach’s) for most of the day. We arrived in Raleigh, picked up our Rent-A-Car, and headed to the hotel. The weather was rainy when we first arrived, but turned out to be beautiful by game time. We arrived at the hotel and headed straight for a luncheon meeting catered by the hotel (Mmm!). We talked with the YES staff about what we would be doing the next day on Saturday. We were going to be running a clinic from about 9 a.m. to noon for kids of all ages to work on offensive skills, defensive skills, fitness, and life skills. We chatted, ate, got some neat gifts, and got a first glance look at our new best friend and one time arch-rival Vonnie Valentin. Once the meeting adjourned, we grabbed our bags and checked into our rooms. The hotel we stayed at was gorgeous. It was about ten stories and had a beautiful pond right in the middle. The beds were so comfy and filled with pillows that I felt like a queen. We relaxed for just a little bit and then headed downstairs to leave for the soccer complex where the evening’s semi-final games would be playing. We breezed through most of the traffic with our VIP pass and pulled up to this amazing stadium filled to the max with soccer fans from all over the world. The first game was just getting started. It was the University of North Carolina versus UCLA. We had amazing seats in the center right below the press box about four rows up from the field. The atmosphere was just amazing. Fans from all over the world were there watching the most elite teams in women’s soccer fighting for a national championship. The first game was an intense one and came down to the final minutes where North Carolina put in two late goals to take the lead. One of the goals was by the National team player Heather O’Reilly. The second game started a little bit after the first one ended and this game was between Florida State and Notre Dame. We grabbed a little snack and I do mean little before this game started. This game was really exciting and had us on the edge of our seats most of the time. Notre Dame seemed to dominate in the first half and they went up on Florida State by two goals. During halftime of this game, the fans were encountered with a special treat. They were recognizing some old players that had made a special impact on the rise of women’s soccer and one of them was Mia Hamm herself. How cool! In the second half, Florida State roared back and scored a goal and almost tied it up on many occasions. Notre Dame ended up pulling off the victory and was scheduled to face the University of North Carolina in Sunday’s national championship game. After the games ended Friday, it felt like it was midnight because we had already had such a long day. We left the stadium quickly, again with the help of our VIP pass, and headed for the Sunset Grill and had a nice dinner and dessert. After that we were all pretty pooped (and full). Coach then dropped us off at the hotel, we checked some facebook on the hotel’s computers, headed to our rooms, a select few got a quick shower, put our jammies on, and hopped into bed. I fell asleep smiling that night looking back on the day’s events and anxiously anticipating the next day. Saturday, December 2 - Amanda Gogel Today we had to wake up at 7 am because we had to be at the soccer
complex by 7:45 am for the YES Clinic. At our meeting Friday, the
head lady of the clinic explained to us what we needed to do for
the camp as an instructor. We each had a group of about 15 kids
per session which were 30 minutes long. All of the soccer athletes
were paired up with different soccer athletes from other schools.
Meaghan, Sarah, and I were in charge of teaching offensive dribbling,
moves, and shooting. Alyssa was helping with defense. In each of
our sessions we worked on dribbling skills, shooting and finished
with letting the kids scrimmage. The important point we needed to
make sure was that they learned something and had fun. Not only
was it a good experience for the kids, but for us as student athletes
as well. It was an awesome feeling to see the kids look up to you
and listen to everything you said. The smile on their faces while
playing meant a lot, knowing that they were having fun, made us
enjoy it even more. If you made a move in front of the younger kids,
they thought you were God, even if you weren’t the best soccer
player on your college team. I think we can all say that working
the YES Clinic was a great filling and would recommend any athlete
to get involved with it. After the clinic we had the whole day off
to do whatever we wanted. Of course, with our money we received,
we went shopping. Then later that night we met up with one of my
former high school classmates that plays softball at NC State and
went out to eat.
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