 | BARRY SOLLENBERGER Sollenberger in Paradise |
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As a freshman, Debbie Flaherty had some pretty strong feelings about Michigan."I absolutely hated it," she said. "I didn't feel any connection to the school or to anybody here. I mean, when I played, I wasn't sure what I was playing for."
That's not exactly true. Flaherty knew for whom she was playing. It's just that she really wasn't into it. You see, she didn't take much pride in being a Wolverine.
Fortunately for Michigan, it rarely affected Flaherty on the field.
Two years later, Flaherty, a junior, has become one of the best players in the three-year history of the Michigan women's soccer program.
The midfielder is the Wolverines' all-time leading point-producer, a two-time All-Big Ten selection, and one of six players remaining from Michigan's original varsity team.
But Flaherty certainly hasn't always been happy in Ann Arbor.
In fact, soccer as a varsity sport got off to as rocky a start at Michigan as Flaherty did.
Part of Flaherty's problem awaited her and other freshmen when they first arrived at Michigan - the upperclassmen already on the team.
These Wolverines were part of the program as club members and were to play out their eligibility as just that - club members. On the other hand, Flaherty, as part of Michigan's first-ever recruiting class, received the benefits of a player on a full scholarship. Many of the older club players resented the younger recruits and the preferential treatment they received.
"The first year it was weird," Flaherty said. "The older juniors and seniors were the ones who had been playing all along. And then these new people came in, and they were getting the money and the attention. There was a lot of resentment."
With this animosity came attitude problems. And these problems infected the team like a disease during the past two seasons.
Even though the Wolverines went 11-7-2 in their initial varsity season, they were not a happy family. Jealousy from some older players led to dissension.
And that led to losses.
Last year, Michigan struggled to a 7-11-1 finish. The blame for the sub-.500 season was blamed on a difficult schedule. And more bad attitudes.
Flaherty still wasn't into the whole Michigan thing.
"It's amazing, because attitudes are contagious," Flaherty said. "I think we had negative attitudes spread throughout the team last year. It made our team really negative as a whole."
Finally, this season, things started to change.
For the first time, the first recruiting class is the nucleus of the team. The Wolverines are 7-6-3 this season, but Flaherty said that the mediocre mark can be primarily chalked up to a difficult schedule.
"(Michigan coach Debbie Belkin is) putting a lot of nationally ranked teams on our schedule," Flaherty said. "We're closing the gap slowly. Our goal this year, and I think it's pretty realistic, is to win the Big Ten (tournament)."
That goal is within reach not only because of Michigan's existing talent. According to Flaherty, there exists a genuinely positive feel to the team for the first time.
The bad attitudes are on their way out.
"It's kind of been a weeding process through the years - to get rid of the negative attitudes," Flaherty said. "That's been our focus here. We have all the talent here. We're trying to get positive attitudes and positive play our here together."
Flaherty thinks the Wolverines have the right attitude for the first time since she's been at Michigan.
"For the first time in three years, I feel like we're playing together, playing for each other," Flaherty said. "It's an awesome feeling."
The Michigan women's soccer program and Debbie Flaherty have come a long way in just over two years. In that time, the Wolverines have gone from a team riddled with dissension to one that is ready to challenge for the Big Ten championship. Flaherty has gone from wishing she had went to school somewhere else, to being one of Michigan's leaders.
This season, Flaherty knows she plays for Michigan, but that's nothing new. She's been playing for the Wolverines for over two years now. It's just that there's one major difference between her playing for Michigan today and two years ago.
Now she's proud of it.
- Barry Sollenberger can be reached over e-mail at jsol@umich.edu.