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Lower's Lowdown
August 12, 2004 | Women's Soccer
Aug. 11, 2004
Every two weeks during the women's soccer season at Louisville, junior Gina Lower will share her thoughts with you in Lower's Lowdown. Gina is the U of L Student Athlete Advisory Committee President, a member of the Dean's List and All-Conference USA honoree in soccer. Although it seems summer flew by, I had a wonderful one! In May, I represented the University of Louisville at the NCAA Leadership Conference in Florida. I spent a week with 350 other student athletes from all over the US and the world. It was the most diverse group of students I will probably ever be around in my whole life. We did a lot of team building activities and talked about leadership skills. We were in meetings most of the day, but still had time to hang out and get to know each other. We had one afternoon to spend at the Walt Disney World Parks. At night, we spent time at the pools and hot tub. I've waited since my freshman year to be selected for the conference, so I was very excited to go. I learned so much and plan to bring as much as I can back to my campus and make a difference. At the conference, we had to make an 'action plan'. It was something that we wanted to do on our campus, a change that we wanted to make. It's August 10 and my action plan is complete! Even though the conference is over, I met so many new friends. We stay connected through a list serve and I plan on seeing a few people throughout the year when I'm traveling for soccer! It was an amazing experience that I will never forget! By the time I returned from Orlando, the little girls team that I coach had finished their season. We ended up 2nd in the league, so I was very happy. It was a lot of fun to coach them and can't wait until next spring! I learned a lot from them, and I definitely plan on coaching when I'm done playing. Summer workouts also started when I got back from Florida. Most of the girls on the team that were in town started working out daily with one of the strength coaches. UofL was in the process of hiring a new team strength coach, so we worked out with some girls from the field hockey team. Some of my teammates and myself went to volunteer at the US Women's National team game against Japan. It was in June at our football stadium. My job was to set up the water and the benches and make sure that both teams had plenty of water and stuff during the game. It was really cool to sit right by the bench and listen to April Heinrichs coach. I also noticed that all the players on the bench were taking notes during the game. Brandy Chastain was really encouraging on the bench to her teammates and did an awesome job when she went in for the second half. When I sit back and think about it, here at UofL we've gotten to experience some really awesome things. We played against the Washington Freedom in March and got to hang out with the team, some of us got to meet and talk with Heather Mitts at the beginning of summer, the National Team was in town for a game and we got to volunteer at the game and talk with some of the players* and we are going to England for our preseason! Not bad. I don't know of any other schools that have had all these great things, especially having them all in one year. We are very lucky! I went to Memphis towards the end of June for the C-USA SAAC meeting. We met just for the weekend but did some really coo things. We went to the Civil Rights Museum and heard a speech from a friend of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and one of the last people to ever speak with him. It was a short weekend, but we got a lot of things accomplished and learned a lot. In July, we got our new strength and conditioning coach, Teena. She is definitely different than anything any of my teammates and I have experienced. We workout everyday at 7 or 8am, each workout takes a little over an hour. They are very intense workouts, but I know we all really like them. Liz Kinny and I were the first to go through a workout. We were definitely sore for the first few weeks. It was a great workout! As more people from our team came, the easier the workouts were. It's much easier knowing that other people are going through it with you. The environment was a lot more competitive and we pushed each other a lot. I'm really happy we finally got someone in there, especially someone as awesome as Teena! So today is my last official day of summer, preseason starts tomorrow! All the new girls have moved in, and all the returning players are all back. This afternoon we went for a 2.5 mile jog to let our bodies recuperate from yesterday's workout. Tomorrow we start with all of our meetings, and Thursday we start with the beep test! Friday, we are playing against Nebraska in memory of Jenna Cooper. She played for Nebraska and is from Louisville. Saturday we leave for England so we are all really excited for that. Even though summer is over, I have a lot of great memories. This was my first summer living in Louisville and not at home, so it was a big adjustment.
