W Soccer: Dickerson Always Finds A Reason to Smile – Ohio State Buckeyes
10/30/2008 12:00:00 AM | Women's Soccer
Story by Leah Abouahmed, Ohio State Athletics Communications
COLUMBUS, Ohio Being a captain for a collegiate team any team, in fact is challenging. Cassie Dickerson’s circumstances make being a captain even more challenging. The third-year sophomore defender, who was selected by her teammates as one of the team’s three captains for this season (along with co-captains Amy Graeff and Ashley Bowyer), is having to help lead the team from the sidelines.
That’s because the player coach Lori Walker says “has the best balance of fun on the team” has injured a knee for the third time in her career. She injured her right anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) just before the start of her freshman season at Ohio State. She did the same to her left ACL last season before she had even played a game for Ohio State, and then three college games and 2 minutes 35 seconds into a fourth game this season she re-injured her right ACL.
“When I heard I had torn it for a third time, I went blank,” Dickerson said. “I didn’t really know what to think. I didn’t want to believe it. I never thought it would happen again…I didn’t think it would happen one time to begin with, and I thought the second time would be the last one.”
The pre-vet major started playing soccer at four years old. She played recreation soccer, coached by her mother, until age eight when she started playing travel soccer. By age 12, Dickerson was playing premier travel soccer.
All those years of soccer enabled Dickerson to get used to a leadership role. She served as a captain of her high school team, her club team, the Michigan Hawks, and also her Olympic development team.
“I think she has a good balance as a leader,” Walker said. “She’ll be the first one to get on somebody if they’re not working hard, but she’ll be the first one to pat them on the back when they’re doing a good job. That’s one of the things that makes her different than some of the young leaders that we have in the program.”
Dickerson returned home to Kalamazoo, Mich. to have surgery on her knee in early September. Two days after the surgery, Dickerson sent an email to the players and coaches. The team had suffered losses to Milwaukee and Marquette to open the season and six games into the year, Ohio State was 0-4-2.
“I wanted to do something,” Dickerson said, “but I couldn’t be here to say anything so I sent them the e-mail.”
“After I tore my ACL twice, I told myself that if I ever tore it again I’d be done, that I wasn’t going to play again. Evidently, I have, and my perspective has been dramatically altered. You know when you want something so bad, but it always seems out of reach? You get so close and it moves just a little bit further. Well that something of me is playing soccer for Ohio State…
“Coach has been continually encouraging us to ask ourselves what the game is teaching us and what it’s telling us. Well, the game is questioning my heart and testing my passion and my dedication toward it. My past experiences with this injury have only made me stronger and taught me the meaning of courage and perseverance. If there is anything I want you to learn from my situation are these very things that I’ve learned from it as well. Playing at Ohio State is not a right; it is a privilege, one that we are all lucky and blessed to have. If you ever have the urge to give up or get so frustrated that you can’t perform, just think about my situation. I haven’t had the privilege to play a season yet. So if you can’t find it within yourself to fight fight for me. Strength is found when strength is tested. I’m confident that our team will make it thru this test we’ve been faced with….”
The e-mail was well received from players and coaches. She received emails and text messages from players about how much they appreciated her e-mail. Two games later, the team started a winning streak that would reach six games.
“When you read her e-mail, you think that a professional athlete could have written it,” said Laura Roberts, a sophomore forward. “It’s very motivating. Cassie is probably the strongest person I’ve ever met. With her being off the field, I almost look at her as one of our coaches because, even though she’s only played in a couple games, she has so much knowledge. She is composed and she has a natural leadership.”
The players learned from Dickerson’s situation that they shouldn’t feel sorry for themselves when they have a bad game, something Dickerson learned from Coach Walker.
“Last year in winter conditioning, Coach called me out in front of the entire team during a meeting and told me, You need to stop feeling sorry for yourself. This team needs you.’ That’s when it clicked for me. I realized that if I wanted to do something for this team and be an influence in this program, it really wasn’t about me anymore.”
In the past three years, Cassie Dickerson has been challenged, but she knows that everything happens for a reason.
“I just know that God has a plan and I’m living it right now and making the best out of every situation.”
And the best Dickerson can do right now is to be a leader from the sidelines. And that’s what she’s doing. Thursday afternoon she boarded the team bus at 3:30 p.m. for the trip to State College, Pa. The Buckeyes play their final regular season game Friday at 4 p.m. against Big Ten champ Penn State.
And Cassie will be there, too.
###OhioStateBuckeyes.com###
