Lauren Papalia, CC'02

No one would argue that on the grassy fields of collegiate soccer matches, Lauren Papalia, CC '02, is a force even the Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA) will likely notice next year when it begins looking to draft new players.

And they should: Her leadership as co-captain this season helped the Light Blue to one of its best records in years with a 10-6-1 overall mark, and Papalia, an All-Ivy first team defender who started all 17 games, led the team with assists, an achievement usually recorded by offensive players.

But make no mistake: the other side of this successful athlete reveals an equal vigor, that of a serious student.

Growing up in the Boston suburb of Belmont, Mass., Papalia often explored the road less traveled. Though she traded her time among reading, writing, and playing sports throughout New England, she fell in love with southern stories when someone handed her a copy of Harper Lee's Pulitzer prize-winning novel, "To Kill A Mockingbird." The young writer/athlete identified with Scout, the book's protagonist, who Papalia calls, "the tom-boy type with big eyes for a big world."

"I admired her insights, even though she was a bit precocious," Papalia admits. The book helped shape in Papalia an adventurous approach to all she does, an attitude Columbia coach Kevin McCarthy recognizes as "a tremendous focus and passion that's quite singular. She is a great combination of soldier and artist on the field."

Soccer co-captian, Lauren Papalia shows her creative form on the field in a recent match.

When she wasn't playing in a state select soccer league, Papalia spent her high school days "uninspired" by science and math classes, busy with other team sports, and enraptured with the stories and writing exercises she encountered in English class. Her parents encouraged her to make her own decisions, affirming Lauren's individuality while supporting her efforts. Their trust became her anchor—much like Atticus' (Scout's father) became Scout's in Lee's novel—and the Papalia's eldest child felt free to explore her gifts. "She was a self motivated, and confident kid—very easy to love, and admired by her peers and adults alike," says Lauren's father, Roy. Such support helped Lauren find expression in creative outlets like writing, soccer and literature.

The combination paid off when Papalia graduated from Belmont High as a 1998 Soccer Buzz Freshman All America because of her play with FC Greater Boston select teams, and was recruited by top colleges across the country, including Columbia. Instead, she chose George Washington University in the nation's capitol where she stepped into the starting lineup and helped lead her team to a championship Atlantic-10 game against U-Mass (which narrowly beat GWU 1-0). She finished her first collegiate season with five goals and two assists.

As the next year ended with a change of coaching staff, Papalia began to feel disillusioned. She lost her passion for soccer and school. Rather than going through the motions of academia, she felt the right thing to do was to take a break. She traveled to Spain and Portugal with some surfer friends, and eventually returned to Boston with a little more wisdom and perspective.

"The best thing I could have done personally was to take a year off," Papalia says. The time exploring the beauty of Europe's countryside and learning to surf off Spain's shores with her friends gave her a new appreciation for the opportunities she'd been given. Back in Boston, she got an office job at Harvard, saved some money and by the end of her year off, decided she was ready to return both to the classroom and the soccer field. Papalia remembered McCarthy from when he initially tried to recruit her, and called him.

"Lauren's time off created a little more appetite in her for the game," McCarthy said. "We were excited to have her with us because she's constantly refining her skills, constantly working her craft. Her ability to stay calm in the tumult of the season is something her teammates have absorbed."

The feeling was mutual. For Papalia, playing on the team and being at Columbia has been almost surreal. "To be in New York City, at a place like Columbia, and playing soccer with this group, well, it's a little like a fairy tale. Students sometimes think it's a lot of pressure being here, but they don't have to be here at all," Papalia suggests. "I think it's a privilege. It's forced me to grow up a lot."

The 'growing up' process has included Papalia's discovery of writers like Jeannette Winterson, Tom Robbins, Flannery O'Connor and James Baldwin. It's also meant learning to juggle Shakespeare, non-fiction workshops, and world literature classes with soccer practice, personal writing and family in order to maintain her 3.6 GPA and a consistent spot on the Dean's List. But she sees an easy correlation between each commitment since "the (soccer) field's got a lot of space to cover and no set plays. It mirrors literature and good writing because there's no formulas or equations. The only way to get better at it is by playing."

And so, Lauren Papalia plays: as a leader on the soccer field, in the classroom, and with her own pursuit of creative expression. Where will she be ten years from now when she returns to compete in Columbia's alumni game? McCarthy won't be surprised to see his former co-captain playing "professional soccer, traveling abroad, and carrying for me an autographed copy of her published short stories."

Papalia smiles at the thought. "I'd be happy taking any kind of job as long as I have time to myself and to write. Maybe I'll freelance, teach, write a screenplay or travel the country. Maybe I'll play for the WUSA. Who knows? I never thought I'd be at an Ivy League school at all," she says. "Columbia has given me a little bit of everything and I don't know if I'll get another chance in life to have so much."