Alumni Bulletin - Winter 2009 - (Page 15)

SPORTS women’s soccer LEWANDOWSKI PROVES TO BE A ‘TREBLE’ THREAT After four years of distinguishing herself on Goodman Campus’ soccer ﬁelds, Gina Lewandowski ’07 wasn’t ready to leave the game behind. So with help from her assistant coach, Mary McVeigh, she wrote a resume and sent out tapes of her games to a family friend who played for a men’s club team in Germany. The friend pestered the coach of the FFC Frankfurt women’s team until the coach agreed to give Lewandowski a one-week trial. “(The family friend) told me it took about a hundred calls until the coach called him back,” Lewandowski says. “He didn’t want to take an unknown person without national experience.” The one-week trial was extended to two, then to a month, and ﬁnally ended with an invitation to play with one of Germany’s premier soccer teams. Lewandowski went on to become the starting center back as Frankfurt became the first team in history to capture the prized “Treble,” or sweep all three of that year’s championships: the German Cup, the UEFA Cup, and their league championship, called the Bundesliga. Most of Lewandowski’s teammates are native Germans with varying knowledge of English; thus Lewandowski received a crash course in German commands during her ﬁrst few weeks. Spiel (play) hinter dir (behind you), sie kommt (she is coming), schiess (shoot), and geh (go) were rapidly added to her vocabulary and used even among her three American teammates. “You can communicate in other ways— laughing, smiling, joking without words,” adds Lewandowski, who can now speak nearconversational German. European professional soccer moves at a much quicker pace and relies on more technique than the Patriot League’s version. With limited German, Lewandowski learned speed and skills through sight and action. For practice every day, “I had to be mentally prepared and really focused,” she says. “It was mentally exhausting and physically tiring.” Every day, Lewandowski drives 45 minutes from her aunt and uncle’s house on the outskirts of Frankfurt for two hours of team prac- tice. At times, she has a longer commute to play in Belgium, Sweden, Italy, and Russia, and she’s vacationed in France and the Netherlands. Gina Lewandowski starts as the center back for one of Germany’s premier She returns to her parents’ professional soccer teams. home in Coopersburg, Pa., twice a year for Christmas and summer break. remember her as—someone who was going to “When I first got here it was extremely get the job done. hard because of the language and not knowing “As a teammate, I would pick her ﬁrst any anyone,” she says. day,” Iwaskiewicz says. “She always worked, As an undergraduate at Lehigh, Lewanwas unselﬁsh, and remained humble through dowski was a “special player,” says her teammate all of her accolades. She was someone others and good friend, Erin Iwaskiewicz ’05. naturally looked to as a leader because of her “Two of my favorite games were against work ethic, attitude, and success.” Lewandowski continues to play profesColgate on my senior night and when we sional soccer with FFC Frankfurt, although inmatched up with American in the Patriot juries and a new coach have weakened the League semifinals that same year,” recounts FFC Frankfurt’s performance during the Iwaskiewicz, who is now Lehigh’s assistant women’s soccer coach. “Even though she was 2008-09 season. As of early January, the team only a sophomore, Gina scored clutch goals to was a contender for the Bundesliga. —Becky Straw help us win both. That’s the kind of player I YOU CAN’T SPELL “CLUTCH” WITHOUT “LU” Following weeks of online voting, “Clutch” was revealed as the name of Lehigh’s Mountain Hawk mascot during Lehigh-Laf-a-palooza in November. winter 2009 PHOTO BY DOUGLAS BENEDICT 15

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Lehigh Bulletin - Winter 2009 Contents From the President's Desk Mailbox On Campus Research Arts & Culture Sports Teaming Up to Tackle Global Challenges Positively 4th Street A Sweet Job From the Publisher's Desk Alumni News

Alumni Bulletin - Winter 2009

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