Putting it All in Perspective

Robin Johnston, co-captain of the Harvard women's soccer team, looks pretty good on paper.

The senior forward was been the leading scorer in the Ivy League both as a sophomore and as a junior.

She holds the Harvard record for most goals scored in a game (with four), a feat she achieved last year against Columbia.

In fact, Johnston's soccer accomplishments go back before her Harvard career--the Colorado native was the state's leading scorer for two years in high school.

Yes, she looks good on paper. But the paper doesn't tell the whole story.

Contrary to what one might think of such a successful athlete, Johnston is a woman who keeps soccer in perspective.

"I play soccer because I love the game," Johnston says. "The minute I stop having fun on the field is the minute I'll stop playing. I don't play for the stats. I couldn't even tell you my stats. I play for me."

A great deal of this insight came to her in the weeks following October 4, 1987.

In her senior year in high school, Johnston was playing with her club soccer team five days before it was scheduled to compete in the Washington Area Girls' Soccer Tournament (WAGS).

The WAGS served as a recruiting ground for dozens of college coaches, many of whom already had their eye on the young Johnston.

But that afternoon, Johnston snapped her anterior cruciate ligament, incurring one of the most feared injuries in sports.

The anterior cruciate ligament is one of the two ligaments in the knee that provide the stability which holds the knee together.

"The anterior ligament ensures that the lower leg does not ride forward of and above the thigh bone," Harvard Athletic Trainer Dick Emerson said. "It is a very significant injury."

The doctors told Johnston her high school soccer career was over, and that it would be six months to a year before she could play again if she was lucky.

If surgery were unsuccessful, they told her, she might never be able to play sports again.

"I was more scared than in pain," Johnston said.

The injury forced Johnston to take a step back and reexamine how important soccer actually was to her.

"I had to decide what I wanted," she said. "But I decided I would miss soccer a lot if I quit. Playing soccer makes me happy."

When the doctors allowed her to finally start rehabilitating her knee, Johnston worked out a strenuous three hours every day.

"I knew I'd be back," she said. "It was all a matter of confidence."

In the meantime, she was in contact with Harvard Coach Tim Wheaton, who had gone down to the WAGS to see her play.

"Although Robin wasn't there, I talked to her coach for a long time. He said some really great things about her," Wheaton said.

Armed with this recommendation, Wheaton went ahead and recruited Johnston while most other coaches shied away.

"I felt she belonged at Harvard," Wheaton said. "Her maturity and intellectual curiosity made me feel she was Harvard's type of student.

"Although I never saw her play, I felt she was worth the risk her injury posed to her career."

While Johnston herself says that Wheaton "went out on a limb," Wheaton maintains his decision to recruit Johnston was not a gamble.

"With her great attitude, I knew she'd be back," Wheaton said.

Johnston did come back and returned with a vengeance. Although her doctors would not allow her to play in games, she participated in all of her team's practices.

That spring, wearing a cumbersome knee brace, she led her school team to the Colorado semifinals while leading the state in scoring.

At Harvard, she started as a freshman and never looked back.

"She's made a huge, huge impact on our program," Wheaton said. "Her ability to create goals by her individual effort has won a lot of games for us."

Wheaton praised her confidence as a leader even more than her talents as a player.

"As a leader, she's determined," Wheaton said. "She's got a great sense of perspective, demanding a lot from her fellow players without assuming that soccer is the only thing in their lives."

It's an attitude deeply rooted in Johnston's own conviction that soccer is not everything.

"Soccer lets me get away from it all," Johnston said. "It's kind of therapeutic, in a way."