They each give credit where credit is due, and they both live in a balanced state of healthy awe-tinged respect for each other.
Because both Nicole Garbin and Oregon coach Tara Erickson know that if it weren’t for each other, neither one of them would have been able to help lift the program into what it became this past year, and what it is today.
Sure there were also lots of other people involved in the Ducks’ resurgence. And both Garbin and Erickson readily distribute props all around – to the assistant coaches, to the corps of talented young players who embody the Erickson Era of Oregon soccer, to the leadership that Jessie Chatfield and Dylann Tharp provide; to the supplementary goals that Allison Newton and Dani Oster have scored, and must continue to score to keep the team riding its upward curve next year.
But for the most part, the story behind the success of the Ducks’ 2006 season is the story of a one-of-a-kind player, and her connection with her remarkable coach.
To hear Nicole Garbin describe everything from soccer, to basketball, to lessons learned in life, the single word that flows most readily out of her grinning, always wisecracking mouth is “Tara.”
What was the worst thing about the realization that you’d played your last game without ever knowing that it was your last game?
“Probably that night,” the Ducks’ star striker answers. “Tara just kept apologizing and was almost in tears when she was just like ‘I’m so sorry Nicole, I’m so sorry Sunday was your last game. I had no idea.”
Did basketball help?
“Yeah, Tara kinda made me realize that too. She was just like, ‘Channel all this energy that you have right now on the basketball court.’ I love basketball and I made a quick decision to just get out there and play.”
Was it hard transitioning from being “The Shit” on the soccer team to being a bench player on the basketball team?
“I think because I’m so much older and have been playing for so long, I have that level of maturity to understand that there are different roles on every team. And Tara talked to me about it too. She was like ‘You know, you’re not going to be THE player anymore. You’re not gonna have the team on your shoulders. You’re gonna be one of those players who’s gonna be on Eleanor Haring’s shoulders.’
When a player quotes her coach that frequently, it’s a indication of just how in sync player and coach are. It’s clear that in two short years, Tara Erickson has quickly become one of the focal figures in Garbin’s life.
But their relationship goes far beyond the typical situation where both coach and player live in a symbiotic state of cooperation because they’ve realized that each makes the other look better. The rare blend of almost star-struck respect with which they seem to regard each other is something you don’t see out of a player-coach combo very often.
From talking to them, you get a sense of just how intimately these two have come to know each other. Erickson knows what makes Garbin tick. She knows that she can “ride her harder than everyone else” because that’s the best way to get maximum production out of her ace
Garbin on the other hand, is proud to have the team depend on her, and readily admits that all Erickson has to do to motivate her to up her game is to shoot her one of the many “dirty looks that she knows I’m terrified of.”
Terror aside, Erickson grins in amusement when told that Garbin seems to be in awe of her. “That’s funny, because I’m probably in awe of her more than she’s in awe of me,” she says. [email protected]