Underneath the glamorous façade of professional sports, away from the pompous superstars and exorbitant contracts, lie hardworking athletes simply trying to turn their passions into viable careers. Sophie Reiser, CC ’10, is one of those athletes.
Reiser, a three-time all-Ivy League first team selection as a Columbia women’s soccer player, is a developmental player with the Chicago Red Stars of Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS). And her path to this point has not been an easy one.
Reiser was Chicago’s fifth-round selection and the 42nd overall pick in the 2010 WPS Draft. The draft, held in January, consisted of seven rounds and 65 selections.
But getting drafted was only the first step. Reiser still had to prove herself on the field in order to receive a contract offer from the Red Stars.
Proving her worth as a player became difficult when Reiser injured both shins.
“They had flared up and originally [there were] stress reactions in both, probably just because I had been training so hard following Columbia’s season and then particularly once I got drafted,” Reiser
said. “I was running a lot, but I like to run, I enjoy it, so didn’t really think much of it.”
It was only once she began preseason training with the Red Stars and started practicing twice a day that she realized the severity of her left shin injury.
“I knew for sure that I wasn’t going to be able to last too long,” Reiser said. “It just got to the point on my left side that I couldn’t bear weight on it at all.”
But Reiser, who has struggled with shin pain throughout her soccer career, continued to pursue her goal of playing professionally.
“That, honestly, is a testament to Sophie’s character and perseverance,” Columbia head coach Kevin McCarthy said. “It would’ve been very easy, with the injury she had, to just sort of give up … But Sophie was adamant that she had not yet checked this off her list and not yet finished this part of her journey.”
On July 27, Reiser was rewarded with a spot on Chicago’s developmental roster.
“Sophie’s strengths are her feistiness—her ability to, in the final third, score some goals,” Red Stars head coach and director of soccer operations Omid Namazi said. “But the biggest thing that caught my eye was her willingness to fight, and that’s something that we’ve been missing on our team.”
Reiser saw action in two of Chicago’s games this season, playing in midfield for 22 minutes in her first appearance and six in her second.
“Any time that you work that hard in a season, you always want to get a chance to get in and see some game time,” Reiser said. “I was just really glad to be able to contribute a little bit.”
While Reiser finished the season with the Red Stars, she is still battling injuries. She currently has a stress reaction in her pubic bone, which means that any abdominal movement causes her pain. As a result, rehabilitation will be a longer-than-usual process.
“Most things I do for exercise, I can’t do, like swimming and biking, and obviously running or playing soccer,” Reiser said. “I just need to take off a lot of time.”
In addition to injuries, Reiser had to adapt to head coaching changes. Emma Hayes, who helped to draft Reiser and coached Chicago’s first six games of the year, was replaced with an interim coach and then with Namazi.
“It’s been, definitely, a big learning experience,” Reiser said. “From every coach, you learn how to play differently, so it’s been an interesting transition.”
Reiser has also had to adjust to the professional game.
“It’s just faster,” she said. “You have to be thinking ahead of the game all the time. You don’t get freedom to take extra touches, and when you make a mistake, the other team is going to capitalize … Even in practice, when you make mistakes, they really stand out.”
Despite the challenges of being a professional athlete, Reiser hopes to continue on the path that she has forged. She has not ruled out playing overseas but will likely remain in WPS if offered a contract for next year.
Women’s Professional Soccer is a young league—this is only its second season of existence—and, like Reiser, it has seen its share of struggles. Its most notable challenges have been financial ones, as two of the league’s original seven teams folded this year.
Though the league also expanded to two new cities for the 2010 season, its survival is not guaranteed.
McCarthy is confident that, if WPS continues to exist, Reiser will continue to be a part of it.
“I would never doubt her ability to not only perform at that level, but to stand out and to make her mark,” he said. “With the talent she has, plus the intangible qualities that she possesses and the range of her personality, I would always bet on her succeeding.”
Reiser would be content with that.
“If there’s a place for me in this league, I’d like to stick around for a little while longer,” she said.
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