Sunday, August 25, 1996

W. soccer coach Fawcett returns after Olympic glory with Team U.S.A.By Mark J. Dittmer

Summer Bruin Senior Staff

Residency training. Sports teams are in residency training when they actually pick up their things, pack up and move some place new to live and train together.

The U.S. women's soccer team has been doing residency training for almost a year and a half. Whatever they were doing before residency training, most players had to turn their backs on for that time to focus solely on soccer at their new homes in Orlando, Fla.

First in early 1995, the preparation was for last year's World Championships in which the United States finished third. Then in 1996, they prepared for the Olympics. And now they all have gold medals.

Now members of Team U.S.A. are returning to their pre-Olympic lives, at least for a little while.

And when UCLA meets North Carolina on Sept. 13, four of the 16 National Team players will be there, competing for the squads they are members of away from Orlando. UCLA's Olympic hero is their head coach, Joy Fawcett, a defender on Team U.S.A.

On North Carolina, there is Cindy Parlow, who is just 18 years old, making her the youngest member of the U.S. team. Tiffany Roberts is a 19-year-old midfielder, while Staci Wilson played defense alongside Fawcett. Over the past six months they shared many common experiences, but they sacrificed very different things to be teammates.

Parlow was in her freshman year at North Carolina when the call for residency training came, and she skipped her spring semester to try out.

But she missed more than the spring semester of her freshman year. Because tryouts were so early for the team, she was only 17 and should have still been in high school.

However, Parlow planned ahead of time in order to graduate in three years, so that she would have some college experience under her belt when time came to try out for the Olympic team.

Now as she begins her second year at North Carolina, her former high school classmates will be freshman.

If anyone can relate to Parlow's extraordinary situation, it's Roberts, also in her second year with North Carolina, but made an equally weird transition from high school to college.

Roberts did not graduate in three years but rather in three and a half. She left high school in January of 1995 for the training.

"I missed all of my senior activities," says Roberts. "Senior prom, senior trip, graduation, and then the spring semester of my first year at Carolina. And I missed the track season my senior year of high school. The hardest thing was having to leave my family when I was 17."

She and Parlow could relate on that point.

Wilson, 21, is a junior at North Carolina. Wilson didn't miss any high school, but residency training has probably not made settling down at UNC any easier. Wilson became a Tar Heel in fall of 1994, then did residency training in spring of 1995. The following fall she returned to school, but once again in the spring, she departed for residency training.

"It's hard missing our college experience, spring training, leaving friends and family, and the chance to lead a normal life," Wilson says. "I'd missed the previous spring semester, and I was looking forward to leading a normal life."

This year she finally might.

And then there is Fawcett, who left a life far from the three Tar Heels of Chapel Hill to join her teammates in Orlando.

Fawcett is 28 years old, and as the head coach of UCLA, she, like Wilson, wished she could have been there for spring training. But there were personal sacrifices as well. Fawcett has a two-year-old daughter, Katie, who also made the trip to Florida.

"It's hard leaving your family and your support group ­ my mother and my brothers and sisters," Joy Fawcett says. "I used to leave her (Katie) with my mom. At training I had to put her in day care. And my husband couldn't see us as often."

And so after Parlow and Roberts left high school, Wilson turned college into something she goes to four months a year, and Fawcett moved her family back and forth across the country, they have finally got what they wanted: gold medals around their necks.

Was it worth it?

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The players agree it was, because they got much more than a medal.

"The whole experience was tremendous, even if we hadn't won," Fawcett says. "Just to be a part of the Olympic experience. You're able to follow your dream."

Roberts says that the sacrifice of residency training would even be worth it if she hadn't made the team.

"Being in training you become a better soccer player, training every day with the best players in the world, and you can take what you learned into your college games."

"It was all well worth it," says Wilson. "It was a good experience, win or lose."

And though Parlow is one of the youngest second-year students around, she might have experienced more than most.

"The Olympics were a great experience," she says. "Coming to school (college) early was a good decision because all I've done since I got here is grow, grow, and grow. I knew what I wanted to do the whole time."

"I knew for sure that I wanted to try out." Roberts says. "It wasn't even just the whole Olympic experience ­ the training was an experience too. I just put together my photo album and I could look at it for days."

So now the four meet up, one as a coach, and the other three as players. North Carolina will be heavily favored ­ after all they outscored teams last year 108-6. The game will be competitive. As Roberts said, "We're all friends, but we know that when we're competing against each other we forget that; we leave it off the field."

They had to leave their normal lives behind, but the place they went to was a pretty good one. Maybe it will be just as hard to leave residency training behind as it was to start it.

JUSTIN WARREN/Daily Bruin

Joy Fawcett (center) coaches UCLA's women's soccer team after winning a gold medal at the Olympics as a member of the U.S. women's soccer team.