Call it a "Lucky" break.
While Kristen Luckenbill '01 was the brick wall behind Dartmouth's women's soccer success in the late '90s, the Women's United Soccer Association did not exist. Now, three years after leaving Hanover, Luckenbill is defending the WUSA Founders Cup and her Goalkeeper of the Year title as the backstop behind the Carolina Courage.
"I definitely feel very fortunate," Luckenbill said in an interview before the Courage's 3-3 tie with the New York Power on June 28. "I think it was kind of just a case of good timing; the league started up right after my senior season was finished. Timing doesn't get any more perfect than that, because here I've just finished college, and what do you want to do, and you get drafted."
After being selected by the Courage in the 10th round of the WUSA draft, Luckenbill took her senior spring off to take part in the league's inaugural season. The former Ivy Leauge Rookie and Player of the Year (in 1997 and 1998,respectively) was the goalkeeper of record for 11 of Carolina's 21 games, posting a 3-6-2 record after taking the netminder's job from Norwegian legend Bente Nordby.
When the season ended, Luckenbill had little time to reflect on life as a professional athlete, as she returned to Dartmouth to complete her coursework. When her former Big Green teammates began their season, "Lucky" proved as reliable a supporter as she was a goalkeeper, becoming, in her own words, the team's "biggest fan," and even training with the team on several occasions.
On returning to campus as a professional athlete, Luckenbill said, "It was nice, from a transitional standpoint, to be able to go play a season, then go back to college. Actually, it was nice to go back to college while not playing a sport for the first time (Luckenbill was a two-sport athlete at Dartmouth, competing on the ski slopes as well as the soccer field). Obviously, I still had to train for soccer; it's a year-round commitment, but it was definitely nice getting back without having to do a sport. School was a lot easier."
When Luckenbill returned to Carolina for her second season, she made her exploits in goal look easier as well. The Paoli, PA native played every minute of the Courage's season, and lowered her goals-against-average from 1.8 during her first season to 1.43 goals per game, despite facing shots from such internationally-proven stars as Washington's Mia Hamm, Philadelphia's Marinette Pichon, New York's Tiffany Milbrett, and San Jose's Katia. The difference in competition was hardly lost on Luckentbill. Luckenbill shows the highest regard for her new competition, saying that in the WUSA, "The players are just bigger, faster, smarter, stronger, that's probably the hardest adjustment, just to have to adjust to the speed of play."
Luckenbill's success in making those adjustments proved a key to the Charge's success in 2002, as the Courage posted a WUSA-best 12-5-4 record, and went on to win the Founders Cup, defeating Hamm and the Freedom 3-2 at Atlanta's Herndon Stadium. Luckenbill was honored as Goalkeeper of the Year after adding the Founders Cup to her two Ivy League titles as a member of the Big Green.
When asked about the difference between an Ivy League Title and a Founders' Cup, Luckenbill said, "It's very different, because winning the Ivy League, it's not like you play an entire season, and then go into playoffs. Ivy League, you cannot lose a single game in the season. Maybe you lose one Ivy game and you can still win the title, but there's actually a lot more stress in indivdual games, because you only play a team once each year, that's your only chance. There's no room for error, whereas in our league, you're playing a 21-game season, you play everyone three times, and you're pretty much guaranteed to win the league if you beat every team two out of the three times. If you lose one game in our league, you're upset, obviously, you're bummed that you lost, but you can put it behind you a lot more easily than you can in college."
This season, Luckenbill has had something else to put behind her. During preseason training, Luckenbill suffered an injury that required surgery on her left thumb, and was forced to watch from the sidelines as Carolina struggled to an 0-3 start without her services in net. For Luckenbill, who started 70 consecutive games for the Big Green during her collegiate career, being sidelined with an injury was a very frustrating experience. "It was hard sitting out," Luckenbill said, "just because I've really never been injured before.
"Coming off such a great season last year, obviously I wanted to start right where I left off. But, if I had had that injury last week, I would have missed half the season. Fortunately I did it during preseason, and I only missed three games, and then I was able to get back in there."
Luckenbill's return has been a shot in the arm for Carolina, as the Courage has gone 5-4-3 since her return. One of those ties came in Luckenbill's home state of Pennsylvania on May 31, when the Courage took on the Philadelphia Charge and Luckenbill's former Big Green teammate, Mary McVeigh '03. For Luckenbill, though, there was little time to think of the reunion on the field. "It was fun to see her after the game," Luckenbill said. "During the game, you don't really pay attention to who your opponents are. It's all business when you're on the field.
"It's the same way for a lot of the people on our team playing against their national team teammates, or college teammates. On the field, it's all business, and then after the game, you go hang out, and you're friends again."
And for Luckenbill, being "all business" on the field has helped her make plenty of new "friends" in Carolina's SAS stadium.
