Player can't kick soccer habit

OREM — A talented athlete saying she plays her sport for the love of the game sounds tinny and trite by default, because rare is the collegiate or professional competitor who hasn't at one time or another employed a variation of said cliche in the presence of a reporter's notebook and pen.

In that respect, Utah Valley State midfielder Courtney Robbins is an exception to the norm — when she speaks of playing soccer for the sheer joy of competition and being part of a team, her words carry immense credibility. Consider: Following her sophomore year she walked away from a scholarship and regular playing time at perennial top-25 BYU with no intention of ever playing again, only to return to the field as part of an off-off-Broadway Wolverine team when she simply couldn't kick the sport.

"I always loved playing soccer," Robbins said. "But I wasn't an over-the-top die-hard. At least for me, you've got to have fun what you're doing or it's just not worth it; it isn't worth it unless you love it. And when I stopped loving (playing soccer at BYU), I had to stop."

Before BYU and UVSC, Robbins — known then by her maiden name, Courtney Asay — made quite a name for herself at Mountain View High, twice winning 4A state player of the year honors while leading the Bruins to back-to-back state titles in 2001 and 2002. She chose BYU's scholarship offer over the University of Utah's.

Robbins appeared in 13 of 26 games as a freshman and saw action in the Elite Eight round of the 2003 NCAA tournament; as a sophomore she was a more regular part of the rotation, playing in all but three of the Cougars' 21 contests.

Then something quite unexpected happened: With no plans to ever play competitive soccer again, Robbins quit the BYU team following her sophomore season.

"It felt monotonous, like I was going through the motions," Robbins explained. "I felt burnt out. It was so intense, just so much, that it got to the point where it wasn't fun anymore. It was a job I didn't want to do."

In December 2004, a month and a half after her final game as a Cougar, Courtney became a Robbins with her marriage to Josh, a BYU graduate student who had himself played soccer for Division I powerhouse Portland State. She worked in retail and continued attending BYU. Slowly but surely, however, Robbins began to realize that she missed playing soccer and the camaraderie of teammates that came with it. Eventually, she made the decision to return to the soccer field. The only question was, where?