What The Heart Wants

Heart-To-Heart (Part I)

Patrons began arriving for Heart-to-Heart at 6:30 and were greeted by members of the Schissler Recreation Center's Saturday Morning Pick-Up League. Each guest was handed their name tag, which had a colored sticker in the lower left corner along with a 1 or 2 that indicated the pair of Hearts they would be meeting, in which order, and in which gallery. In Gallery 2, Wendy and Lauren were meeting with the 22 embedded members of the club's inner circle, telling them which members of the team they would be visiting and guidelines for participation (be part of the conversation and a check should a question get too personal or confrontational). The players and coaches were doing some informal mingling with early arrivals and checking one another out.

Kristie (to Morgan Reid): I can see why some people think you're nothing but a hot body. You look FANTASTIC! Your fellow Dukies need to take some advice from you.

EJ: The other Morgan was trying to get opinions from us and Sammy Jo on what to wear tonight and none of us I believe were any help. I have a specific look, very similar to that of the other two goalkeepers on the team, and sort of stay with it.

Becca: With the slight change I made in my presentation just before last year, I'm not the best person nowadays to ask about what looks good or what I'd choose if I were you. That said, I have to echo your comments, Kristie. Morgs is smokin'!

Morgan blushed profusely at her friends and teammates' comments. Ali walked over and made sure the rookies were feeling good and ready for tonight's question-and-answer sessions. About 10 minutes before 7, the players met up with their escorts and went to their designated galleries and tables while the patrons were told to gather their groups of eight and before going together to their first session.

***

In Gallery 4, Michael Bridges' group had been assigned Steph Labbe for the first session. She recognized him from the pub crawl and their meeting at the Franklin Fountain a couple of weeks ago and smiled at him, then opened the proceedings with a 60-second bio on her playing career to date. Once completed, the guests started asking questions on everything from her favorite teammates at the club and international level (club: Ali Krieger; international: Karina Leblanc) to advice for young players considering the goalkeeping position to how players deal with the physical and mental aspects of being injured. One of the patrons followed up on that question seeking a more in-depth explanation of her leave of absence and the timeline of going from good to bad to good again.

Steph Labbe: It was somewhere around mid-season that the world seemed to crush in on me. My girlfriend at the time was traveling around the world pursuing her cycling career and the two individuals I relied on a bit after the Olympics in 2016 to keep me grounded were no longer with the Spirit, as Diana and Ali had been sent to other teams prior to the 2017 season. Having no one to confide in about the pressure I felt to live up to the standard I set in Rio, I turned the anxiety of being able to perform at that level consistently inward and it created a level of depression that required me to get away from the game for a while to recover. That was the bad. The good began to come around in early October when a number of my friends and former teammates came to Las Vegas to celebrate my birthday with me. It was then that I felt as though I could find a new start in the league away from Washington and it led to being selected by the Hearts in the expansion draft. Also, something changed in my private life and helped to carry me fully out of the dumps and into one of the happiest states I've ever experienced.

Michael: Would that change be you and Ali getting together?

Steph Labbe: Very perceptive, oh young one. Yes, Ali and I both ending up in Philadelphia, being given large roles in creating the locker room atmosphere for this new team, and our having a common long-term ally in the friend department, someone who we've both known for a minimum of 12 years I'd say, took the friendship and bond we had developed our one season together in DC and allowed it to grow into something more. You're lucky that I don't get to ask questions during this or I'd be putting you on the spot about how you have turned one of my teammates inside-out with your re-introduction to her life.