(July 21, 2008) -- Cat Whitehill knows exactly what she's missing. Only a year removed from gaining rental-car eligibility in many states, she's spent nearly a third of her 26 years on the planet as a member of the United States Women's National Team, including two trips to World Cups and a gold-medal ceremony four years ago at the Olympics in Athens.
She reached 100 international appearances before the age of 25. Only 14 women have ever played more games for the United States than Whitehill.
So when her teammates open Olympic play against Norway on Aug. 6 in Qinhuangdao, China, Whitehill will know better than almost anyone what she's missing while she watches from her home in North Carolina and rehabs a surgically-repaired ACL in her left knee.
"My husband has been awesome, my family has been very supportive and all of my friends have really helped me kind of get through this," Whitehill said of her time since tearing the ligament in early June while training with the National Team in South Korea. "I know that now my state of mind is pretty good, but come August, it could be difficult."
But after the toughest stretch of what had been admittedly a largely storybook soccer life, what she discovered had gone missing before the injury may be the key to getting her through the disappointment of missing the Olympics.
(Bill Barrett /isiphotos.com)
Cat Whitehill will be cheering on her teammates in Beijing as she rehabs a surgically-repaired ACL in her left knee.
It's not surprising that Whitehill's injury took place on foreign soil, if only because it's easier to tear a knee ligament on the soccer field than it is packing a bag at home. After a short respite following last fall's tumultuous World Cup in China, Whitehill and the National Team spent much of the first five months this year on the road, squeezing Olympic qualifying in Mexico into a schedule already loaded with annual trips to the Four Nations Tournament in China, Algarve Cup in Portugal and Peace Queen Cup in South Korea.
"We were gone a lot – I think I was out of the country more this year than I was in it, just because of all our different trips and qualifying and everything," Whitehill said. "That was really difficult – I was away from my husband, I was away from my friends and family. Mentally, it gets really hard because you're living out of a bag for a whole year. You know, you miss home, you miss the normalcy and the routine of being home."
Travel is nothing new for National Team veterans, but these were new heights of frequent-flyer miles. Not to mention all the travel this spring came in the midst of adjusting to a new coach in Pia Sundhage, an experience Whitehill likened to having to re-try-out for the side. Slowed by an ankle injury early in the year, Whitehill started just one game prior to the knee injury, a friendly against Australia in her hometown of Birmingham, Ala. in which the team won but conceded four goals – the most since the World Cup semifinal against Brazil last fall.
Just when her body seemed to be on its way back up, she went down for the count.
"That's the bummer of it all is I had finally gotten to the point where I wanted to be," Whitehill said. "I had been through a pretty bad ankle sprain at the beginning of the year, and had to work back, getting playing time, getting back to being fit and everything. And I was finally to a point where I was getting there. I wasn't there yet, but I was at a point where hopefully the Olympics, fitness-wise and health-wise, I was going to peak. And it was taken away in a split second. That's a bummer. I worked really hard this year – it's one of the hardest years I've been through, work-wise, injury-wise and just mentality-wise."
Long one of the more outgoing and effervescent personalities on a team not short on agreeable people, Whitehill logically found herself as one of the locker room's spokespersons when controversy erupted over former coach Greg Ryan's decision to switch goalkeepers before the semifinal against Brazil and Hope Solo's infamous comments after the subsequent loss. After a win against Norway in the third-place game, Whitehill stood patiently in the media mix zone in Shanghai and answered question after question about what had happened and what came next for a program unfamiliar with controversy.
Coupled as it was, perhaps more importantly to the players, with a second consecutive third-place finish in the tournament, the unwanted attention that came with the events in China surely took a toll on all involved. For someone as preternaturally upbeat as Whitehill often appears to be, there was farther to fall before hitting bottom.
So as she suggested, it wasn't just her physical conditioning coming back when the plane touched down in South Korea in June in advance of the Peace Queen Cup.
"I mean, everybody goes through a certain lull in their career when soccer isn't as much fun as it is work," Whitehill said. "And I just hated the fact that I was looking at it more as a job than as what the game really is, and that's just fun. And it's a great avenue for so many different things. It was definitely hard, and I think there were a lot of factors into it, but I think the World Cup just escalated why soccer became so hard for awhile. Working through it was difficult, getting past it was exciting and now I've just got to go through another bump in the road with the ACL."
As difficult as it will be to have to watch events unfold in Beijing as the National Team looks to reclaim some of its international glory and defend the gold Whitehill helped earn four years ago, those games will also help motivate her through the hours of rehab ahead. Because while it's three years until the next major international competition, it's less than a year – almost exactly the length of a typical ACL rehab, in fact – until Women’s Professional Soccer kicks off. The most experienced player who never had a chance to play in the WUSA, Whitehill is excited about an opportunity to chase down championships at another level.
"Now I have even more experience of getting through a certain situation that might not have been my particular plan," Whitehill said. "But I think it's going to be exciting to see my reactions to everything, and this is what I want – I want to come out better than I ever was. And I'm going to try my hardest to do that."
And as she mused about WPS’s geography, the disappointment that had been in her voice as she talked about a tough year and a missed dream in Beijing diminished. A bit of the old Whitehill humor resurfaced, just as the fun she gets out of being on a field may as well.
"There need to be more southern teams," Whitehill laughed. "I don't know what's going on there; we only have Dallas. And I know the West Coast people are thinking the same thing, but me being a Southern girl, I think they all should be in the South."
Graham Hays is an ESPN columnist and a contributor to womensprosoccer.com. He can be reached at moonlighthays@gmail.com . The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author's, and not necessarily those of Women’s Professional Soccer or womensprosoccer.com.
