All kicks and giggles

By Travis Ball
The Collegian

ON THE FIELD, FRESNO STATE Women’s Soccer player Angie Larsen protects her team’s goal with an adult type of ability, but at heart she’s still just a kid.

“I guess I’m just kind of old school,” Larsen said. Along with the 1980s and the Ninja Turtles, she also fell in love with the character who lives in a pineapple under the sea — SpongeBob SquarePants.

“I’m pretty easy going,” said the senior goalie. “I love to laugh about anything and everything, and make the best out of any situation.”

Larsen’s easy going way of life doesn’t stop with an interest in youthful animation, it pours out of her as a teammate as well.

“Angie has a way of saying something or making some sort of funny crack that everybody kind of laughs at,” said Steve Springthorpe, head coach of the Fresno State Women’s Soccer team. “She’s a personality. Players like that are important. Even when things are a little bit down they have a way of making things fun.”

Sometimes life is not always easy going. Larsen knows things are different on the soccer field.

“On the field I’m a little more serious, because most of the time you have to be,” she said. “There’s a lot of pressure, but at the same time there can be glory,” Larsen said about being a goalkeeper.

She believes it’s just part of the game.

“The goal box and the 18-yard box. It is my domain. It’s my spot to shine. It’s my place to take charge.”

According to Springthorpe, being a goalie is not always a pleasant job.

“If you talk to people who’ve been around soccer for awhile they’ve always considered goalkeepers as kind of crazy,” he said. “It’s not unusual for a goalkeeper to take a hit in the face once in awhile.

Angie’s not crazy in the sense she doesn’t know what she’s doing, but she’s got a wild fun side to her.”

As the youngest child growing up in San Jose, Larsen said she and her brother were into sports while her sister was the cheerleader type. Sports were always a part of her life. When she wasn’t trying to tag along and play street hockey with her brother and his friends, she was learning from one of her earliest coaches – her dad.

Reed Larsen said his daughter was a natural born athlete.

“At five years old she was blowing away the boys,” Reed Larsen said. “She’s always been very focused and determined.”

Without her family and parents Larsen said she wouldn’t be where she is today.

“My dad is a total sports fanatic,” she said. “He’s always been pushing me.”

Back home in San Jose, Larsen’s mom provides encouragement when she can’t make a game.

“My mom has always been there for me,” she said. Text messages from her mom can make a current loss feel like it was weeks away.

A junior college All-American from her time at West Valley College in 2004 before coming to Fresno State, Larsen didn’t always like defending the net. In fact, she once quit.

“My sophomore year in high school is when I actually started playing goalie again. I had played it when I was like ten or eleven and actually hated it and quit,” Larsen said. “My life is just falling in love with the position all over again.”

Now 21 years old and a kinesiology major, Larsen has hopes of becoming a physical therapist or possibly a coach.

“I would love to coach,” she said. “I think I would enjoy it.”

Larsen said she would know how to relate to her players, and be able to push them while making sure they have fun at the same time.

“The more fun you have doing your sport the more you love it, and the more it drives you to do better and keep pushing yourself,” Larsen said. “You see results and then you know you got to keep going.”

Larsen, who received 2005 First Team All-WAC and 2005 WAC All-Tournament team honors in her first season at Fresno State, is already somewhat of a coach on the field and a leader to follow.

“On the field her leadership qualities are pretty good,” said Springthorpe. “She communicates well, and she instructs well. As a goalkeeper you need to be able to do that. Not only make saves, but you have to be able to help the people in front of you accomplish their tasks as well.”

As a goalie, Larsen believes you have to be vocal and have an ability to direct the field.

“I would like to consider myself a leader,” she said, “and I think on the field goalies kind of have to be.”

When it comes down to precisely what Larsen is on or off the field some people have stronger feelings than others.

“I’m a little biased of course, being her father,” Reed Larsen said about his daughter. “She’s phenomenal.”

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