SPORTS: Women?s soccer coach to play professionally

By Lily Gordon

Published on Wednesday, February 13, 2013

A few months ago, assistant women?s soccer coach Brittany Cameron was cheering for the Big Green from the sidelines as the team won its last seven games in a row, posting the second-best winning percentage in school history. Now, the roles have now reversed, as the women?s team cheers on Cameron when she joins the Sky Blue FC National Women?s Soccer professional team this spring in her fifth year of professional play.

In Thursday?s 2013 National Women?s Soccer League supplemental draft, Cameron was the first of four goalkeepers drafted and the thirteenth overall pick. Her new team, the Sky Blue FC, is one of eight teams in the newly formed National Women?s Soccer League and is based out of New Jersey.

?I?m doing something that I absolutely love,? Cameron said. ?What comes along with doing something you love is working hard and I?ve never stopped working.?

To train for her preseason, which will begin the second week March, Cameron has been working out on her own and playing with the Dartmouth men?s soccer team, training specifically with men?s goalkeeper trainer Emmett Rutkowski.

?I don?t accept mediocrity,? Cameron said. ?Even when I haven?t played in six months, it?s important to keep working and never accepting that you?re good enough.?

Cameron, a California native, has continued to grow and challenge herself throughout her soccer career. She was a team captain at Dublin High School in Dublin, Calif. and was named to the Contra Costa Times and the All-Diablo Foothill Athletic League first teams and was awarded league most valuable defensive player honors. Cameron continued her soccer career as a goalkeeper for the University of San Diego, where she posted nine shutouts during her senior year and earned the West Coast Conference Defender of the Year.

In 2009, she was drafted by the Los Angeles Sol as the 52nd overall pick. After leaving the Sol, Cameron played for two other American professional soccer clubs, the FC Gold Pride and the Western New York Flash.

Cameron joined the Big Green as an assistant coach last fall and plans to return in August once the Sky Blue season ends. Under her coaching, the Big Green accrued an overall record of 13-4 and a league record of 6-1, finishing second in the Ivy League.

?She brings a lot of energy and is a great person to have around the team,? women?s head coach Theresa Romagnolo said. ?She?s also a great motivator and brings a high level of experience to the team.?

Cameron devoted much of her time this season to coaching goalkeeper Tatiana Saunders ?15. They worked together to set season-specific goals, such as allowing less than one goal per game and being named to the All-Ivy team.

?In our end of the year meeting, we were talking about it and we achieved all of those goals,? Saunders said. ?There was not one specific thing we worked on, but just me becoming a better goalkeeper and reaching these goals and becoming a better leader on the team.?

With the help of Cameron, Saunders was named to the All-Ivy first team and the NCAA All-Mid-Atlantic Region second team.

Romagnolo said she hopes Cameron?s professional career will help attract recruits to Dartmouth.

?To be able to tell recruits that one of our coaches is playing in a professional league, something that a lot of these young players are aspiring to do, will be really great for our program,? Romagnolo said.

Saunders agreed that the Big Green will benefit from having Cameron continue to play and develop her skills.

?Her playing at such a high level means she will continue to grow as a goalkeeper and she?s going to be able to bring that knowledge back next fall, and hopefully help me and the other goalkeeper develop even more,? Cameron said.

As a coach for the Big Green this season, Cameron said she has learned much from the Big Green women.

?I?ve seen what it?s like to be a good all-around person both on and off the field,? Cameron said. ?The kids here are so smart and so willing to learn and I?ve learned from them just as much as they?ve hopefully learned from me.?

Source: http://thedartmouth.com/2013/02/13/sports/soccer/

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