Former Tiger Puts Best Foot Forward For Ducks

It took about 20 minutes for the loudmouth down in the front of the bleachers - with no shoes, but a clever quip for just about everything - to get a positive ID from his game program on the University of Oregon midfielder.

Her astute play had already helped set up two goals. Number 6. Junior. Five-foot-four. Playing experience at Lewis and Clark High School in Spokane, Wash. “Oh,” he said. “It’s that local girl.”

Louisa Lakos, back in her hometown last weekend for a pair of soccer games at Gonzaga University, felt the pressure.

“There were friends, parents, old coaches, and my brother here,” Lakos said following the game, which ended in a 3-3 tie. “I was pretty nervous.”

In this inaugural season for women’s soccer at UO, Lakos, 20, an eight-time sports letter winner from LC, has worked herself into a starting role on a team whose coach expects it to develop quickly into a Western power.

Bill Steffen, former coach at four-time NCAA champ North Carolina, envisions a key role for Lakos.

Ironically, while Lakos still has freshman eligibility status, her previous two years at UO make her one of the team’s older players.

“Louisa has the opportunity to have a great impact on this program in the years to come,” Steffen said, noting that Lakos’ maturity has become a benchmark for the younger players.

For instance, her heads-up dash in front of the net led to a crucial goal during a game at Cal State Northridge two weeks ago, giving the team the boost it needed to win its first game of the season.

When Lakos started at the university in the fall of 1994, however, she didn’t expect to be playing varsity soccer.

She chose the Eugene university on the strength of its academic reputation, not to play soccer.

After all, she said, there is more to life than sports. Lakos already has two years in the school’s environmental studies and biology program behind her.

Still, following a year with the school’s club soccer team, she was excited when those whisperings of a Division 1 team grew louder. By 1995, the school’s athletic department was considering crew, swimming or soccer as the next step in its 4-year-old gender-equity plan to expand female athletics.

“When we heard that we were up against (the other two sports), we started collecting signatures and talking to officials about soccer being the best choice,” Lakos said.

Once the decision had been made, however, Lakos and her club soccer teammates still weren’t guaranteed a spot on the varsity. In fact, only three members of the 1994 club team remain on the current roster.

Former club team head coach David Burgee helped train Lakos for the varsity tryouts. Even with her experience on Olympic development teams throughout the region and a childhood playing premier soccer in Now that she’s playing, she says being involved with a team during its beginning stages is indeed something special. Every game, every goal, every notch in the win column - UO is now 2-4-2 - is like making history.

“We’ve got a good team,” she said. “If not this year, then next year we’d like to be in the NCAA Tournament.”

The heckler in the bleachers would probably agree. Not bad for that local girl.