His next tweet says: A stunner, if not totally unexpected. Plagued by injuries, including concussions. Was phenomenal for Stanford.— Chris Henderson (@chris_awk) September 20, 2013
Wow. That's really too bad. On the other side of the coin, Stanford who is famous for doing less with more, tried to get Jane Campbell to red shirt this season but Campbell wanted to compete for the starting job. In retrospect, hw dumb would that needless red shirt have been now.
You can always pull a player off of redshirt, and play them immediately if need be. The cost? Well, the player loses their redshirt. But no big deal if she would have needed to play immediately. And it would have been dumb to redshirt her, even if Oliver were healthy. If Campbell gets her degree after four years, then she may not even stay a 5th year. She could go in to the NWSL draft right away, and be on the national team by then (if Hope Solo "or" Barnhart retires after the 2016 year, which is very possible).
Emily Oliver is one of the best College Cup goalkeepers I've ever witnessed. She was phenomenal in the 2010 NCCA College Cup. She saved a bunch shots on goal with heroic acrobatics. Only Adriana Leon's rocket shot off of a nice Melissa Henderson pass right in front of the Stanford goal is what made the difference and won the game for Notre Dame. Otherwise the whole tournament, she was magic. It's too bad that a career was cut short for a phenomenal goalkeeper. However, leaving with a Stanford degree is not all that bad.
Millions of girls nationwide play youth soccer. 99% of parents of those girls would love to see their daughter get a college degree from a school like Stanford & win a National Championship, even if it meant sacrificing their daughter's pro career. 99% of them would take that.
And we still don't know about the Katie Stengel situation. There's always that slim chance that her career is over now, but let's hope not.
Those two ladies walked away, but people want to callout the NT over Chalupny. They have a lot of politics with that team even though the sheep want to turn a blind eye but they made a good decisionm, not to let her on the pitch. Look at the problems the NFL and NHL are having with retired players now. The big problems come down the road, not during the playing years.
With all the concussions, it might be worth the risk if you're making millions per year in the NFL or NHL. But to make $5,000 per year (salary) in NWSL, it just isn't worth the risk, if you have a history of concussions. And the national team doesn't pay Chalupny or anyone else millions per year. Only 5-digits per year. So for her sake, it's not even worth it, but she loves the sport that much. Chalupny is the type that would sacrifice her entire brain and life for the sport. She's that dedicated. Kudos to her.
Hopefully Stengel make a full recovery. Concussions r a different matter. Can mandatory headgear be far down the road?
Kudos to the NT for not calling her up because the lawyers won't be so friendly 10 yrs after retirement.
Or, maybe a header is the same as a handball. It wouldn't help keepers much, but .... Think about it, how much different would the game be? I'm actually thinking this may be the direction in which soccer goes. Unlike American football, which may have to go join the dinosaurs -- which is why the NFL has fought so hard to hide brain damage dangers from the public.
Headers aren't the problem, it's collisions. (Unless you're dealing with a rocket to the face like we saw early in NWSL, but that wasn't really a header anyway.)
Yep its not the headers its when players collide and the head snaps back. That is what causes the most damage. The brain floats in the head and it gets bashed back and forth when the head snaps back, bruising the brain and causing memory loss and dizziness.
But a lot, IIRC most, of these happen when players jump to try to make a header. So disallowing headers would drastically decrease those kind of accidents. But what it would do for the game is more unclear.
Also head to head clashes attempting headers. There have recently been a lot of studies on women soccer players concerning heading the ball and memory loss.
Ah, true, I see what you mean. And women are more at risk than men due to muscle mass around the neck and head mass all working against them in the physics of acceleration. Good technique would go a long way in alleviating the problem, but you can't expect everyone to always be using good technique. I doubt headers will ever be banned, though - I think there might be reason for it in the women's game thanks to the different physiologies, but you'll never get it out of the men's game and I highly doubt they'll make a rule change that only applies to women.
Agree it is extremely unlikely for it to happen in the men's game, I would say it is probably even more unlikely for it to happen in just the Women's game. I could see it possibly happen on a leagues levels but mainly just for younger age groups.
Allie Long certainly plays like she has memory loss. She could be sitting on a yellow card, and she still doesn't remember that she has one. And then Kat Williamson gets screwed in the Final.
There has been a recent trade. The Boston Breakers have traded their first round draft pick (4) in exchange for FCKC's first round draft pick (7) and Courtney Jones. The Current FIRST Round Draft Order: 1. Washington Spirit 2. Chicago Red Stars 3. Chicago Red Stars 4. FC Kansas City 5. Sky Blue FC 6. Portland Thorns 7. Boston Breakers 8. WNY Flash A Current, Best Available according to Top Drawer Soccer 1. Crystal Dunn 2. Julie Johnson 3. Vanessa DiBernardo 4. Maya Hayes 5. Kealia Ohai 6. Kassey Kallman 7. Natasha Anasi 8. Maegan Kelly 9. Nkem Ezurike 10. Mandy Laddish The Pre-Season Top 25 from All White Kits 1. Crystal Dunn – D – North Carolina 2. Julie Johnston – D/M – Santa Clara 3. Maya Hayes – F – Penn State 4. Kealia Ohai – F – North Carolina 5. Vanessa DiBernardo – M – Illinois 6. Emily Oliver – GK – Stanford 7. Aubrey Bledsoe – GK – Wake Forest 8. Katie Stengel – F – Wake Forest 9. Morgan Marlborough – F – Santa Clara 10. Nkem Ezurike – F – Michigan 11. Mandy Laddish – M – Notre Dame 12. Christabel Oduro – F/M – Memphis 13. Natasha Anasi – D/M – Duke 14. Kassey Kallman – D – Florida State 15. Cloee Colohan – M – BYU 16. Michelle Pao – D – Pepperdine 17. Lindsay Elston – M – Washington 18. Nicholette DiGiacomo – M – Denver 19. Becca Wann – F – Richmond 20. Jonelle Filigno – F – Rutgers 21. Annie Steinlage – D – Virginia 22. Rafaelle Souza – D/F – Ole Miss 23. Karenee Demery – F – Cal State Stanislaus 23. Courtney Verloo – F/D – Stanford 24. Kelsey Wys – GK – Florida State 25. Maegan Kelly – F/M – Marquette
I think there is a factor here that isn't getting consideration. Teams already have the main parts of their rosters on board. They will have a salary cap, although we don't know what it will be. Within the salary cap, teams will have only a limited amount of money to pay whomever they draft from the college group. This may have an effect on the teams' draft decisions. In other words, a team may not draft the best available player when the team's turn comes, if the team won't have sufficient money to sign her. It makes predicting what teams will do very difficult.
Which is why Chicago will certainly take DiBernardo with the #2 or #3 overall pick. They have two picks in the Top 3. Teams will draft more local, because it'll be easier to convince a local player to play for pennies, compared to an out of region player. Chicago would go local for at least one of those two high draft picks, to be safe.
On the flip side, rookies often command much lower salaries than players who have proven they can play in the pros. I don't think salary is a huge consideration with drafts.