A late bloomer
Nanda McCormick is a junior, a sophomore (in a way) and in her first season with the Gonzaga women’s soccer team (kind of).
“Nanda is sort of an anomaly,” head coach Shannon Stiles said.
And on a team that has made its living being stout on defense, McCormick – whose mom is from Fiji though her ancestry is Eastern Indian and whose dad is from Wisconsin (the two met while her father was in the Peace Corps) – may also be the key to any success the Bulldogs might have when they take on 16th-ranked Southern California today at 5 p.m. in the first round of the NCAA women’s College Cup in Fresno, Calif.
“We have such a strong defense,” McCormick said of a team that has 11 shutouts on the season. “(Goalkeeper Ashley) Haugen is amazing, not much gets by her. We are almost to the point where we think (the opponent) is not going to score, so it’s just our job to score.”
And score she has. McCormick – a junior academically, a redshirt sophomore on the soccer field – leads No. 18 Gonzaga (12-3-4) with nine goals, is tied for second in assists with three and leads the team in points with 21.
Not bad for someone who’s in her first season playing with the varsity team.
She was a redshirt as a freshman with the basketball team and gave up the sport the following year for soccer.
“I joined the reserves team for fun and once I started playing I realized how much I missed it,” she said. “On the basketball team, I would have gotten some time, but not very much, and the opportunity to play soccer was there.”
Starting out with the reserves soccer team, she eventually joined the varsity team for the last two weeks of the 2004 season, practicing but not playing.
Her first varsity action came in this season’s first match. In that game, McCormick – who at 5 feet, 10 inches has the prototypical build and game for a target forward – scored the game-winner in the 79th minute, appropriately off a header.
It was a goal she almost didn’t get the chance to score.
“To be honest, she was on the bubble in terms of whether she was going to travel on the first trip,” Stiles said. “We had to ask if we could take 19 players because we needed an opportunity to figure out who we were. We took Nanda, she scored in the first game and there’s been no stopping her after that.”
After not playing soccer for nearly two years, then starting out on the reserve team, no one could have foreseen the impact she has made on this year’s team. Rarely does a player move from reserves to the varsity team, let alone have this type of impact.
“She’s the diamond in the rough,” Stiles said. “It doesn’t happen often. It’s really not any thing about luck. It’s a testimony to how hard she chooses to work. She’s the player on Monday, our day off, taking extra touches, shooting on the keeper, calling on (assistant coach) Kieran (Barton) to come out early or stay late to get extra shots.
“She has dragged a lot of players with her, and any time you have someone that driven, who can get other players to do same thing, that’s somebody worth their weight in gold.”
“She’s improved unbelievably,” added Haugen, who as a goalie has to face McCormick every day in practice. “Her work ethic is amazing. It’s awesome to have someone around that wants to stay after practice all the time, to work that hard to get better, it’s paid off for her tremendously. … I love it. You don’t run across forwards like her very often. I’m just glad she’s on our team.”
Originally, McCormick – whose full first name is Nandini (pronounced none-duh-nee) – had no intention of playing soccer. Coming out of Shorewood High School in Shoreline, Wash., McCormick had decided to focus on basketball in college, and she even passed on a chance to play soccer when contacted by Stiles.
“In high school, it was one of those things where excelled at both, but since I was playing basketball, I decided to stick with that,” McCormick said. “Shannon contacted me and asked if I was interested, and I let it go by because I had just basketball on my mind.”
So focused on basketball was McCormick, that when she finally joined the varsity team, her coaches and teammates had to do a bit of translating.
“When we try to explain certain things to her, about counter-attacking, for example, the coaches will translate into basketball terminology so she can understand it,” Haugen said. “It’s kind of a running joke that they have to switch it to basketball so she understands.”
McCormick made quite an impression while with the basketball team, so much so that she has recruited a new group of fans.
“She was as hard-working and coachable an athlete as we’ve ever had,” GU women’s basketball coach Kelly Graves said. “She’s a great person to be around and have on the team, really a dream teammate. … We’ve all become soccer fans because of her.”
But now with the lingo down and new fans in tow, McCormick can focus on what she does best: working hard and improving her game.
“I do put a lot of work in outside practice, because that’s what I have to do in order to be where I need to be,” McCormick said. “I’ve got a long way to go. I’ve come a long way, but I need to spend more time at it to get there.”