Michaela Swensen’s parents couldn’t be prouder of her for signing with California for field hockey, but she’s not about to let her mother, Michele, live down the time she dropped her off at a recruiting camp at Cal last summer.
The car pulled up. Swensen hopped out into the warm sunlight and said goodbye to Michele, who responded with, “Enjoy these four days in Berkeley because you’re never gonna come back.”
Now, the Live Oak senior will just smile and say jokingly, “Hey mom, guess who’s going back to Cal!”
Swensen, 17, bears no hard feelings. Part of Michele’s light-hearted skepticism stemmed from her daughter’s self-doubt. Swensen was confident she had the talent, but not the grades to attract a scholarship offer from the school of her dreams. She was in high spirit by the end of her trip to Cal. Swensen received the camp’s MVP award and was told by Golden Bears coach Shellie Onstead that if she worked hard, anything was possible.
Swensen was all ears. The lithe 5-foot, 9-inch midfielder earned a 3.4 grade point average in fall and made first-team All-Santa Teresa Division with eight goals and seven assists, helping the Acorns to a second straight Central Coast Section quarterfinals appearance in November.
“She’s really come a long way,” Acorns coach Gina Sanders said.
After a tense few months, Swensen was invited to make an official to Cal in early February. Onstead made her dream a reality.
“I fell in love with the campus, but my decision was final when Shellie told me she was willing to take that chance on me,” Swensen said, “and my response was … ‘I won’t let you down, coach.’”
Swensen signed a letter of intent on Feb. 9. That same day the story behind her trip to summer camp became a running joke in the Swensen family.
“I think the experience helped to bond me and my mom,” she said. “This has just gone to show that anything is possible if you want it bad enough.”
Swensen’s dream of playing at the NCAA Division I level began to take shape when she made the varsity team her sophomore year. She joined Infinity, a formidable club in Gilroy, the following offseason and made second-team all-league as a junior.
Colleges began taking notice of the red head with a big stick.
“Her skills went through the roof,” Sanders said. “Michaela’s fast; she’s diligent, and she has an incredible hit. She can beat players down the side and cross (the ball) in front of the goal mouth no problem. I knew she could do great things, and I really wanted her to play Division I. As a coach, you don’t want to see that kind of potential go to waste.”
There was a distinct possibility that would happen after the 2011 season. With no scholarship offers, Swensen faced the cold reality that her playing days were coming to an end. Watching teammates Kirsten Doting (Pacific) and Megan Rauschnot (San Jose State for soccer) sign in winter only made it harder, although Swensen was very happy for them.
“When I was alone I’d freak out about it,” she said. “I was scared, thinking when’s my turn?”
Her future is set, but Swensen is keeping her nose to the grindstone. She trains three days a week with Infinity and has joined an Olympic-development program, “just trying to do nonstop hockey.”
Swensen plans to major in sociology and minor in photography.
“I figured if I major in studying people, I can take better pictures of them,” she said.
Sanders foresees a bright future for Swensen.
“She can play anything,” said Sanders, a former standout at Live Oak and Division I Massachusetts. “She has great endurance, and she’s fast. If they work her at forward, I wouldn’t be surprised. She’s really aggressive, and she’s confident. Playing with Kirsten definitely helped with that. It motivated her.”
That her younger teammates can look up to her as a Division I signee means everything to Swensen.
“I don’t look at myself as a super star,” she said. “At the end of the day, if I could help a younger teammate … get excited about what they are playing for when they are out on the field working hard for three hours nonstop, sweating and out of breath, that’s good enough for me.”
