Feb. 14, 2009

It may be a bit apropos that Alhambra High senior and Diablo FC 90 player Laura Gordon will end her high school soccer career with a case of badly bruised ribs, the result of being double-teamed and knocked around pretty good in a loss to Campolindo earlier in the week.  Despite that aching rib cage, Gordon was still planning to play in her school`s regular-season finale against Miramonte on Friday, and she says she`ll be ready next week if and when Alhambra is invited to the North Coast Section 2A playoffs.


       Laura Gordon    That`s no surprise to those who know Gordon. After the way her prep career started, her friends, family and coaches understand that it takes a lot more than a bad bruise to keep this girl down. She may not be the best prep soccer player in the East Bay - although she`s one of the best - but finding someone tougher might be, well, tough.

In her freshman season at Alhambra, doctors discovered she had a four-inch bone tumor under her quad just above her right knee. The tumor was benign, but surgeons had to cut through muscle to remove it, and even now, when she every so often steps just the wrong way while playing soccer or just walking around school, she inexplicably collapses. There`s no pain, just some embarrassment.

"It`ll happen mid-stride and there`s no warning," she said. "But I`m pretty graceful at getting back up because it`s happened so much. I can almost make it look like I was trying to do it."

Scary? That`s nothing. About a month after her surgery, Gordon was so bored in her recovery that she decided to take a ride in an all-terrain vehicle, lost control while going around a curve and slammed into a tree going 40 mph.

She fractured the orbital bone around her eye, broke her nose and incurred myriad bruises and lacerations as well as a major concussion.

Then, because she suffers from asthma, she had to have her nose re-broken during her sophomore season because she was having trouble breathing. But she never stopped playing.

"They really had to chop up my nose, take out some cartilage and reconstruct it, basically," she said. "My dad got me one of those clear masks like they wear in basketball because I didn`t want to miss any games. It wasn`t the most attractive look."

But Gordon pulled it together physically in her junior and senior seasons, and the results were startling. With a team-leading 15 goals and seven assists, she helped lead Alhambra to its first NCS berth in 19 years in 2008. This year, she has 25 goals and 11 assists and the Bulldogs are on the bubble once again for NCS. They should make it, considering they play in the rugged Diablo Foothill Athletic League, which has produced the last two NCS 2A champions, Campolindo and Miramonte.

But the crowning achievement to Gordon`s prep career was that she signed a scholarship to play at University of San Francisco last week despite that horrible beginning, selecting the Dons over UC Irvine, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and several state and Division II schools that pursued her.

"It was a nice reward for all she`s done," said Alhambra and Diablo FC 90 and 95 boys coach John Badger.

"Laura is 100 percent all the time. I`ve coached a lot of boys teams and I`d say she plays more like a man than a girl. She`s very strong, athletic and aggressive. She`s a handful for anybody, because like most top athletes, she has a great passion to win and compete."

That passion carries over in the classroom, where she is a 4.3-GPA student hoping to major in kinesiology or some form of athletic training. Gordon`s versatility on the soccer pitch should serve her well at USF. She is equally adept playing forward or defender, the latter of which she does more for her club team, Diablo FC 90 and the team’s coach Rob Terry. Badger has played her there some, too, mostly to give her a breather from the challenges she`s been facing of late upfront. "In the second round of league play, they`re marking her with two players and also covering her with a player, so if she has three versus one, it gets pretty difficult," the coach said. "But pretty much every game out, she`s still the most dangerous player on the field." Soccer is about as dangerous as it gets for Gordon, however. She noted that since her accident as a freshman, she hasn`t ridden in an all-terrain vehicle since - too scary. The bumps and bruises from playing, though? No problem. "You mainly use your legs in soccer, so I`m not too worried about it," she said. "I`ll just wrap it up and go." By Carl Steward Reprinted from Contra Costa Times

Laura Gordon has battled illness and two major injuries to earn a soccer scholarship to USF.