Lack of Experience Not Slowing Down Waldeck
11/5/2014 12:00:00 AM | Women's Soccer
By Brad Rudner
Don't try and beat Nicky Waldeck at something. You probably won't win.
A fierce athlete with an even fiercer competitive drive, Waldeck has been a key contributor in helping the University of Michigan women's soccer team remain nationally relevant during a year in which they weren't supposed to be. With a staggering eight starters gone off last year's NCAA Elite Eight squad, the sophomore has blossomed into an All-Big Ten player despite never playing club soccer.
Now, a lot of people say they love sports, but Waldeck means it. Growing up, she played every sport she could -- tennis, volleyball, basketball, lacrosse, swimming, field hockey and track and field. She even dabbled in bowling (for one summer), horseback riding and ice skating.
As she went from sport to sport, one thing became clear: nothing mattered more than winning.
"I don't even like to lose at cards," she admits. "I was just born with it. It's in my blood."
When it comes to soccer, Waldeck started giving it serious consideration in sixth grade when her next door neighbor and best friend, Kaitlin Moore (now a player at Northwestern), convinced her to come out for the local travel team. She even equipped Waldeck with her first pair of shin guards. From that point on, it was a regular part of her life.
-- Michigan Coach Greg Ryan on Waldeck
That's not to say other sports didn't remain in the mix. When Waldeck was at Western Reserve Academy, a small, private boarding school located in Hudson, Ohio, she had already committed to playing soccer in the fall and basketball in the winter. For the spring, she had to choose between lacrosse, softball or track. After some persuasion, she chose lacrosse even though she had never played it before.
The first year was a struggle. She couldn't pass and she couldn't catch. To most, Waldeck was just a raw athlete that didn't possess the knowledge or experience to make a difference in practices or in games. It was a stigma that arrived four years too early, well before she even stepped foot on a collegiate soccer field.
But by the time she graduated, it didn't matter what people saw or what they thought. With 331 goals to her name -- 220 in lacrosse, 111 in soccer -- Waldeck proved that she had talent and the fiery competitiveness to boot.
"I've always liked not being good at something because it makes me want to be better at it," she said. "Whenever I would pick something up, I'd be obsessed with it. If I wasn't good, I'd figure out how to improve and just work at it."
Many college coaches recruit soccer players based on performances with their club teams, not high school. Despite the lengthy high school accolades, this put Waldeck at a disadvantage throughout the recruiting process, but she had an asset, as her assistant coach, Charry Morris, played collegiately for Colorado College against Michigan head coach Greg Ryan's teams when he was at Wisconsin.
One day, Morris asked Waldeck what her ultimate goal would be. If she could play anywhere, where would it be? When she replied that playing in the Midwest and playing for a Big Ten team would be a dream, Morris sent Ryan several e-mails asking him to take a look. When he agreed, she got Waldeck an opportunity to play with a random club team on the final night of a spring tournament in Carmel, Ind., that Ryan would be attending. By the time Waldeck's team hit the field in the final match of the night, Ryan and assistant coach Angela Napoli were the only two college coaches present.
For 35 minutes, Waldeck ran around and just played, freely and openly, the only way she knew how. She didn't know the coaches, didn't know the system they ran and didn't know the people she was playing with. In retrospect, she actually thought she played pretty poorly.
Upon leaving the tournament, a wave of emotions hit Waldeck all at once. She was angry, sad and remorseful, thinking that she had missed her chance to impress. Turns out it was quite the opposite.
"I didn't think there was a chance in the world this kid would be any good with her background," Ryan recalls. "But then we looked out and watched her play and were like, 'Oh my God. This kid is amazing.' She just had it all."
With mutual interest and the possibility of playing in college on the table, Waldeck needed to gain a better understanding of the ins and outs of the game, from tactics to formations. She contacted club coaches back in suburban Chicago and in Ohio to offer her services as a fill-in player. She bounced around from club to club, simply trying to absorb as much high-level experience as possible.
And look at where she is now. In 38 career matches heading into this week's Big Ten Tournament, Waldeck has scored 15 goals, some of them very memorable. There's the goal she scored in her first collegiate match, a brilliant header against Wisconsin-Milwaukee in last year's season opener. This year, she scored the go-ahead goal with just 24 seconds left to lift Michigan past Michigan State. In the very next game, she recorded the program's first hat trick in three years in a big win over defending Big Ten champion Nebraska.
After all that, believe this: Waldeck, the player who leads her own team in goals (12) and points (29) and who is second in the Big Ten in both categories, still doesn't quite know what she's doing.
"If we got five goals out of Nicky this year, that would have been a great, positive step," Ryan said. "I don't think anybody would have predicted this. She is just scratching the surface at what she can become."
With two years of college soccer to go, Waldeck is only going to get better, a scary proposition to opposing teams considering how good she's already become.
"For me, it's about running with this dream for as far and as high as possible," she said. "This game is hard, and I love that. I know there's so much room for improvement. I'm nowhere I want to be."
