In The Spotlight: Ashlee Elliott
Friday, November 12, 2010 | Soccer, Scott Carter
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – In her bedroom back home in California, the painting on the wall served as inspiration, hope, and sort of as a road map of the journey she envisioned taking the next four years.
The mural featured a Bible scripture, a cap-and-gown design with the year “2010” written. Painted by a family friend from church, the wall also featured a gator chomping on a soccer ball.
Ashlee Elliott looked at the wall often in the summer of 2006 before she made the cross-country trip to Gainesville to start college and her career on the UF soccer team.
But perhaps more than anything else on that wall looking back at Elliott, a plaque with a picture of the NCAA Championship trophy stood out the most. Winning an NCAA soccer title was her goal then, and it remains her goal now as 2010 and her time at UF hit the homestretch.
When she arrived at Florida, Elliott handed out photos of the trophy to her teammates as a reminder of the ultimate prize. She also hung one on the wall in her apartment.
The goal seemed to have passed her by when Elliott suffered a torn ACL in her left knee in the third game of her senior season. For a few weeks, Elliott's mind raced.
Her parents flew in from California. They met with Gators coach Becky Burleigh. The talked to UCLA coach Jillian Ellis, a family friend.
They left the decision to Elliott, who contemplated finishing school and making a bid to join Women's Professional Soccer without that NCAA title she so coveted.
Burleigh offered her advice, words Elliott remembers to this day.
“One thing you won't do – if you come back – you won't regret it,'' Burleigh told her.
If anyone wonders if her decision to return to school as a fifth-year senior was the right one, all you have to do is watch the end of the Gators' win over South Carolina on Sunday for the SEC Tournament title, the Gators' first since Elliott's freshman season.
As the Gators celebrated on the field, in the middle of it all was Elliot, smiling from cheek to cheek as SEC Commissioner Mike Slive handed over the championship trophy. Elliott was the first to grab it, raising it above her head in front of the ESPNU cameras.
“It was a really nice moment,'' Elliott said earlier this week. “Coach Becks told the seniors to go get the trophy. I was like, 'You know what, I'll just take this trophy and hold it over my head and see how it feels.' Hopefully on Dec. 4 it will be the national championship trophy.''
The Gators open the NCAA Tournament at home Friday night against Mercer. If they win, they will face the Cal-Duke winner on Sunday.
A year ago when the Gators opened the NCAA Tournament on Ohio State's campus with a victory over Illinois State before losing in overtime to Oregon State in the second round, Elliott was back home in Gainesville.
“It wasn't even on TV, so I wasn't able to watch it,'' she said. “I just heard what happened and how we got scored on.''
A year later and down to her final chance, Elliott has tunnel vision. She takes her final exam on Dec. 15, and then will head home to California as a college graduate and to start training for the Women's Professional Soccer draft.
Her dad is scheduled to come to town this week to help start packing up her apartment and find a storage unit. She still has that picture of the NCAA Championship trophy on the wall. She hopes by the time the picture is packed, she will have held the real thing above her head.
“That's been my goal ever since I stepped foot on this campus,'' she said. “It's always been a goal. I won a national championship with my club team, and I said I want to be a national champion with the University of Florida.''
