Most freshmen have a hard enough time adjusting to the rigors of Dartmouth without ever taking on the task of being a two-sport athlete.
As always though, there are exceptions, and Weze Shorts '99 has proven this over the fall and spring, most importantly as a starter on the lacrosse team for most of the team's spring campaign. For this, she is The Dartmouth's Rookie of the spring.
Shorts, a highly recruited attack wing from Wenham, Massachusetts, was impressive enough to earn a spot in the starting lineup on a team that entered the season ranked sixth in the nation. This is more remarkable considering that Shorts missed all of fall practice while playing field hockey.
"It was really hard for me to jump into the season because I missed all of fall ball playing field hockey," Shorts said. "So by the time I started up playing lacrosse, the team was already put together and had been playing and practicing with each other."
"Originally in the beginning I felt out of place," she said. "What made it even harder was that as a freshman you need to learn your role, whereas upperclassmen know where they fit on the team. But, for the most part, I wasn't even expecting to play."
It didn't take long for her to get into the lineup or to find her role, as she scored her first goal two games into the season and the team earned first victory over Duke. But even her starting role was a hard adjustment.
"Playing field hockey in the fall, it was easy to be a sub, coming off of the bench and playing 10 minutes at a time. I just went in and played my hardest knowing I had nothing to lose. As a starter in lacrosse though, there was just a different mindset and new responsibilities."
If one of the responsibilities of starting is earning teammates' respect, Shorts has certainly been able to accomplish that.
"Weze is such a great addition to any team in so many ways," Heather McNulty '99 said. "She's funny, hardworking, and just a natural athlete. She really knows how to make you feel good, and she shows leadership on the field and off. Truthfully, I can't say enough about her, she is one of a kind."
Shorts took advantage of her starting spot as she led all of the freshmen in scoring. Although she went through a self-admitted slump for parts of the year, she finished with four goals and four assists to make her the seventh-leading scorer on the team.
Yet, Shorts maintains that trying to put the ball in the net is one of the biggest things she needs to improve on entering her sophomore season.
"I was timid all season and I think that really hurt my play," Shorts said. "When I would have opportunities to go the goal in attacking one on one situations, I would pass the ball to Kim [Mendelson '97] or Julia [Morrill '98] and then try to set a pick for one of them. Everybody was telling me that I needed to take the ball to the goal more and shoot instead of looking for an upperclassmen to pass to."
While scoring has always been her strength, Shorts found playing defense to be the hardest transition from high school play.
"In high school, playing defense was so easy. Rarely as an attacker were you forced to play tough defense, and if you did, the caliber of the players usually meant that someone you defended tightly would drop the ball and it would be real easy to cover them," Shorts said. "At this level though, you need to be ready to push people around and be willing to get pushed around. That is hard for me because of my size, because as [Coach] Amy [Patton] says, if you blow on me I'd fall over."
Even as she is among the returning starters next year, Shorts doesn't see herself as a leader, but she does know what to tell incoming freshman.
"I'm not going to tell next year's freshmen that this is easy or that it's going to be okay. The sophomores this year, they didn't lie to us, they told us that is was going to be hard and frustrating. Which helped me out tremendously throughout the season because like they said, I often found myself frustrated," she said.
Having had her season cut short by a broken nose in the next to last game against Vermont, Shorts is definitely excited to return to the field next spring.
"I was disappointed that I didn't get to finish the season by getting to play against Maryland. But I am ready to come back next year and contribute," Shorts said.
Meanwhile, there is no rest for Shorts, who is back on the grass with a stick, practicing as a member of the Big Green field hockey team.