Freshman defender Chelsea Potts is in her first season with the LSU women’s soccer team and comes to Baton Rouge from Waubonsie Valley High School in Aurora, Ill., as one of the top 100 high school recruits in the country for the Class of 2006. She earned recognition as one of the nation’s top players while competing as a member of both the Region II Olympic Development Program Team and the U-17 adidas ODP All-Star Team in 2005. Potts also played on one of the nation’s premier club teams in Eclipse Select Black, leading the team to the USYS National Championship in 2004 and 2005.
Diary Entry
One thing I was worried about before coming to LSU was if I would become homesick. I live with my mom and step dad when I’m at home, along with my younger sister Brittany and two younger brothers, Nick and Alec. The hardest part of college for me by far is being away from them. The drive from Illinois to Baton Rouge is much too far for my family to drive, so I don’t get to see them as much as many of the other girls on the team get to see their families. My roommates, Nikki (Bush), Malorie (Rutledge) and Katherine (Lagow), have made the transition from living at home to living on my own much easier. They’re a lot of fun to be around and are there for me if I need someone to talk to.
We’re about half way through our season right now and I’m very happy with our results coming out of our first SEC weekend. We tied Vanderbilt and beat Kentucky giving us four points in the standings. I was very excited to hear about some of the upsets in other SEC games, such as South Carolina’s win over Auburn and Mississippi State’s win over Tennessee. We played well this weekend and put ourselves in a good spot, but it will be very important that we continue working just as hard next weekend when we have to travel to play Mississippi State and Ole Miss.
LSU has proven to be just as amazing off the field as it is on the field. I am currently taking 17 hours of class a week. My harder classes are calculus, English and anthropology, but I have two “easier” classes ? ISDS and public speaking. Surprisingly, calculus is probably my favorite class. I have always enjoyed math, and I took a class that was similar to this one during my senior year of high school. I also enjoy ISDS, which is a class that is designed to teach you how to use Microsoft programs. The class is mainly an online course and I only go to class about once every other week to take an exam. This is a good thing because it takes me at least 20 minutes to walk from West Campus Apartments to CEBA where the class is held.
I can’t tell you how much I love being at LSU. I chose to come here because I wanted to help make a great soccer program. After my first visit here, I absolutely fell in love with the campus, the coaches, the players and everything about LSU. My first major goal for this season is to win the SEC. LSU has never won the SEC in women’s soccer, and I definitely feel like we have a strong enough team to win it this year. The second thing that I would like to accomplish on the field this year is to make a good run in the NCAA Tournament.
The biggest obstacle that we’ve faced as a team this far into the season is ourselves. When we’ve been beaten, it’s because we lost the game. As long as we come to play in each game both mentally and physically, I feel that there aren’t many teams in the country that can play with us. One thing I’m looking for off the field is to start figuring out what career path I would like to take. Right now I’m undecided on a major, but I hope to get an idea of what I’d like to do for a living in the next year or so.
We’re already a month into school and our season is half way over. Time has flown by since I’ve been here, and I’m sure that it will continue to do the same for the next four years. But there’s no doubt it will be a great four years for me. I couldn’t be happier with where I am or the people that I’m with both on and off the soccer field. I LOVE BEING AN LSU TIGER !!!