Work
ethic transcends sports for Doffing
Photos by Matt Brown/Sports Information
By
Daniel Frias
On-line Forty-Niner
It
is hard to imagine a time when Lauren Doffing,
a senior co-captain on the Long Beach State
women's soccer team, did not get along with
her coach or wasn't the star player she
is today.
Doffing
had a break-out year last season for the
49ers starting in all 20 games and she leads
a 49er defense this year that has five shutouts
thus far. Not to mention she has scored
two goals this season.
"Lauren
is a great player," said 49er women's
soccer head coach Peter Reynaud. "If
we had eleven Doffings on the team. We would
win a lot of games."
But
it wasn't always this way for the 21-year-old
San Diego native. When Reynaud first came
to Cal State Long Beach three years ago
he had problems with the then sophomore
Doffing because he felt she wasn't practicing
hard enough or playing to her potential.
"Lauren
was nowhere near the disciplined player
she is now," said Reynaud. "We
had a lot of run-ins. She wasn't practicing
hard enough I thought. She was only a part-time
player then, not even a starter."
Doffing
admits that she may not have been as enthusiastic
about practice as her coach would have wanted,
but she attributes it to a bad knee more
than anything else.
"I
had a pretty rough sophomore season,"
said Doffing. "I had tenonitis in my
knee during the summer that year and it
was hurting really bad. So I went to the
doctor and he gave me exercises to do that
were not running. So I wasn't
running and when soccer started in fall
I was out of shape and Peter knew it. He
was at me for the first half of the season."
Things
quickly changed as Lauren got into shape
and showed her coach just how good of a
player she is.
"In
the first game I played in that season against
USD I scored a goal," said Doffing.
"So then I kept playing. I think coach
realized I could play and from then on things
have gone uphill ever since."
Coach
Reynaud has since been satisfied with Lauren's
work habits and how great a player she has
become.
"Her
work ethic couldn't be better," said
Reynaud. "She works
really hard. She has grown up since then.
She has decided to dedicate herself to soccer.
She has worked on her game more and more
and learned to use her potential to the
maximum. She has given everything she possibly
can. She has
become an impact player."
Improving
her soccer skills is nothing new for Doffing
who has been kicking a soccer ball ever
since she was five. Her sophomore year in
high school she was voted "most improved
player" on her soccer team. Two years
later she was the captain of her soccer
team at Mt. Carmel high school in San Diego
and led the team in scoring.
But
her athletic talents go
beyond the soccer field and cross over to
the volleyball court. Doffing was also the
captain of her high school volleyball team.
A sport she had only been playing since
she started high school and grew to love.
But
the 5'8" senior defender with a great sense
of humor had to chose between the sport
she loved and the one she was good at.
"It
was a really tough decision for me,"
said Doffing. "I was really into both
sports. Volleyball was definitely my number
two sport. I loved volleyball. But I had
to leave my volleyball team during the middle
of my senior year because I was missing
club soccer. I went more towards soccer
because I heard I was better at it."
Doffing
sometimes wonders what would have happened
if she had chosen volleyball over soccer,
but doesn't regret for one second the choice
she made four years ago.
"I'm
really glad I came her. It's a great place.
I'm really happy here. The program is awesome.
I've grown so much as a person here,"
said Doffing
"Peter
is great coach when it comes to values of
a person. He
always talks about the big picture in life
and how soccer helps shape who we are and
being out there on the practice field everyday
makes us stronger as people...whenever we
are complaining and we don't want to run
he always tells us how lucky we are. And
we're like 'lucky, yeah sure, right!'"
"But
he's right you know. I didn't see it until
recently. I didn't really appreciate it
all until it was almost over."
In
fact Doffing has learned to appreciate soccer
practice so much that when she does not
have
practice she actually misses it.
"It's
funny," said Doffing. "Sometime
we just dread waking up at seven in the
morning on Fridays to do weights and then
running. We do a lot of running.
A lot of conditioning...sometimes your just
like 'I want to have a day were I don't
have to practice' and then when we get the
day off and it's like 3:30 in the
afternoon and we're looking at our watches
going what are we going to do with ourselves?
I want the day off then I get it and I'm
sitting at home watching Oprah, but I love
Oprah!"
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