Last Thursday, Oregon women’s soccer coach Tara Erickson announced the surprising return of Jessie Proulx. Not as a mentor or coach, but as a player. Proulx, who spent most of the 2008 season as an undergraduate assistant coach, still retains one final year of eligibility and she’s decided to use it.
“We’ve always wanted Jessie to come back,” Erickson said. “She and I had many discussions over the course of last year.”
During summer workouts before her senior season, Proulx went down with what was then deemed a career-ending injury as she tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee. With that news, Proulx decided she wanted to stay around the team as a mentor and coach to the younger players — something she does for a living now as the head soccer coach at Churchill High School.
“Jessie is such a great teammate and communicator,” Erickson said. “Because of who she is as a person already, and then with her time at Churchill, it’s even more evident that she’s a player-coach.”
Erickson admitted that the transition has been “weird” with the team already more than halfway through the season, but, in her mind, any time you can return “arguably the best” goalkeeper in the Pacific-10 Conference to your team it is a positive situation.
But the person most affected by the return of Proulx has been sophomore goalkeeper Cody Miles. Miles had started all 32 games of her career before making the move to the bench last Friday at Oregon State in order for Proulx to start.
“I mean it’s definitely hard to go from the starter to the bench,” Miles said. “But I think it’s definitely a good thing for our team for (Jessie) to come back.”
Miles was all smiles after practice yesterday afternoon, but there was an undeniable sense of importance in earning the starting job back.
“It’s definitely different,” Miles admitted. “But I can’t take starting for granted and so I’ve just been coming out here and trying to do my best to get my spot back.”
Oregon currently ranks fourth in the Pac-10 in saves with 49 through 14 games, while Miles ranks second individually with 44 (3.38 per game). USC’s Kristin Olsen leads the
conference with 71 saves (5.07).
Proulx’s first three years at Oregon were nothing short of astounding as she made her way into the record books as the Ducks all-time leader in wins with 25, shutouts with 16, and goals allowed average at 1.34 per game, while also ranking third in career saves with 233.
During her freshman campaign in 2005, Proulx earned all-Pac-10 honorable mention honors and held the record for the longest scoreless streak in school history, which lasted 355:47 through parts of five games.
There is no denying the fact that she has talent, but for the Ducks it has still been an adjustment getting used to the fact that she is a part of the team again.
“As a team we all were very shocked at even the thought of Jessie coming back,” senior captain Danielle Sweeney said. “But to make it a reality was another thing. Overall, the response has been good with the team as it has settled in. I think were all still getting used to the fact that she is back.”
Proulx and the rest of the Oregon team will definitely be tested this weekend as they travel to Southern California to take on the No. 4 UCLA Bruins (12-2-1, 3-1-0 Pac-10) on Friday night and the No. 9 USC Trojans (11-4-0, 3-1-0 Pac-10) on Sunday.
And after a recent team meeting this week where the women tried to focus on recovering from a tough start to conference play, Miles feels that the team will be ready to go come game time.
“I think our team after our past couple weekends are a little wound up,” She said. “We had our meeting and kind of sorted some things out and I think we’ve got our heads on right.”
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