Two Goalies, One Goal
Thursday, September 24, 2015 | Soccer
RJ Schaffer
Special to GatorZone.com
Fourth-year junior goalkeeper Valerie Tysinger and freshman Kaylan Marckese congratulate one another after Florida's win over Jacksonville earlier this month.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Becky Burleigh brought an oar to her first press conference of the 2015 season. The following week she brought a wilted flower. The items are metaphors for goals she wants the team to have.
This time she gets straight to the point. The Gators women's soccer coach holds up two photos (one of them above). Both show the two goalkeepers on the roster, Valerie Tysinger and Kaylan Marckese, embracing.
To the unknowledgeable, it's nothing more than two teammates celebrating. To Burleigh it shows Tysinger, the incumbent starter, celebrating the success of someone who can relegate her right back to where she came from: the bench.
“It takes a really special person, I think, to be truly excited for someone else's success and that's definitely Val,” Burleigh said.
Tysinger has waited for three years to be the starting goalie for the Gators. After hardly seeing the field in her time at UF, she has started seven of the nine games to begin the 2015 season and is looking to keep the spot she's watched from afar from so long. The ninth-ranked Gators (7-2, 1-1), winners of three straight, have a two-game Southeastern Conference road swing this weekend, with games at Vanderbilt (5-4-1, 1-1) Friday night and at Auburn (8-1, 1-1) Sunday.
Molded by her circumstances, Tysinger has now reached the point where the team's success is her success, where being passed up on being the starter is OK with her as long as it means it's for the team.
For three years, the redshirt junior from Orange Park, Fla., has taken the high road. That road started with a coach who didn't know how close she came to losing Tysinger and an athletic fate that turned her college career into a journey.
At the age of three, she kicked a ball around for the first time. Basketball came next as a dueling sport, but that ended quickly after she saw she was bigger than most other kids and worried she may hurt her opponents because of the different nature of the games.
Thus soccer became the full-time sport once again. The only problem was that she hated being a goalie. For a young kid who wants to run around, there are few fates worse than being relegated to one of the loneliest position in sports where the options are either stand around or be shot at the entire time.
“I was the “get shot on all the time” goalkeeper,” she said.
The sole dedication to one sport led her to rack up awards like the Orlando Sentinel's “Fab Five” Central Florida Goalkeepers in 2011, all-area first team goalie in 2011, 2012 All-Central Florida Girls first team and a two-time defensive MVP for Spruce Creek High.
Despite wanting to be a Gator, she became dead set on going to Liberty University in Virginia. UF appeared to be “way out of my league” as she thinks back on her recruiting process.
One day before committing to Liberty, the first part of her journey fell into place. Burleigh emailed her to say she wanted to watch her play. The coach in blissful unawareness lucked into nabbing the keeper. The keeper in blissful unawareness still had a lot to learn.
The first strides would come off the field. Tysinger was tracking as a pre-dental major until she needed a 100 on her final exam in chemistry to pass. That convinced her that working on teeth wasn't her passion.
The problems involving molecules and atoms weren't the problems she felt she could best solve so the second part of her evolution came with a switch in majors to Spanish and sociology.
“I want to do mission work in South America,” Tysinger explained. “Getting to know people alone can be a problem because of bigger problems like learning how to speak Spanish.”
Her solutions are built in, though. Dental work won't strike too much resonance with non-English speaking natives but being a soccer goalie is a step in the right direction to connecting with those she may not be able to speak to with words.
“There's a lot of interesting things about Val that she brings to the table,” Burleigh said. “We talk a lot about a person being greater than a player and that's definitely true for Val. She's just a very interesting person and soccer is just something that she also does.”
That was just one of the challenges that faced her in the adjustment to college life. There was a new challenge: the Gators already had a goalie. Her name was Taylor Burke and she started 18 games as a true freshman after being the 2010 Ohio's State Player of the Year.
From 2012, when Tysinger arrived on campus, to 2014 when Burke graduated as a co-captain on the team, Burke started a school record 84 times, tied the school record in shutouts with 27 and is the Gators' all-time leader with 7,504 minutes in goal.
“In in the two years I've been here, (Tysinger) has been a huge support and definitely a big motivator for Taylor Burke,” forward Savannah Jordan said. “She was always her biggest partner and Taylor will even tell you (Tysinger) really pushed her to be the best she could.”
Not starting slowly shifted her mindset to how to improve herself and the team at the same time. Become a better keeper and Burke becomes a better keeper; when both keepers are better, the team is better.
“It's been a really hard road, but I wouldn't change it at all,” Tysinger said. “It's taught me a lot about people, things I wouldn't have anticipated. I think had I come in [and started] I would have thought, 'Oh, I'm good, I have it.' Then I wouldn't have worked on the things I was bad at. Whereas if you're coming in and you're not the starter, there are a lot of things you're clearly not good at.
“It's what sacrifice really looks like when you love people.”
From the bench, she began to realize more and more about what defines a team. Her teammates appreciated her encouragement. Tysinger spent her time on the bench giving as much energy as she could to her teammates, something she now appreciates herself in retrospect now that she's on the field.
It wasn't the only shift in her perspective. Without openly saying she realizes soccer is only a game after all, she repeatedly alludes to the fact that her role in life and on the team is not defined by what happens on the field.
Not starting freshman year made her realize maybe she wouldn't have been prepared for the role. Maybe, as time would tell her, as much as she enjoys being in goal, it's just as much of an enjoyable experience for the others on the roster and for them to experience it as well.
The newfound demeanor has shaped her thought process on the field as well. Tysinger openly admits that large amounts of her time in net are spent talking to either herself or the players around her to keep focused.
When the play shifts down to the other end for too long, she may sometimes find
herself pondering, for example, what the team is going to eat after the game. She finds herself laughing at funny things that happen in the stands.
In the Gators 2-1 loss against No. 6 Texas A&M two weeks ago, one of the Aggies tackled Jordan. Both benches erupted as the crowd jeered behind them. From a distance, Tysinger removed herself from the situation and briefly wondered how, as she puts it, are all of these people freaking out about girls kicking a ball in a rectangle?
She knows she is here for both soccer and school, but she acknowledges that those aren't the true reasons she's here. Tysinger believes she is here for the relationships and all that comes with that.
Which leads to the most important relationship right now and the current final rung on the ladder in her journey here: her relationship with the aforementioned Marckese.
This is no ordinary backup. For one, Marckese is only 17 years old. She was a five-year member of Tampa Bay United Premier 97, which happens to be the 2015 US Youth Soccer National Champions. Marckese was named the Golden Glove recipient and was on the US Youth National Finals Girls' Best XI after allowing one lone goal in the entire tournament.
This comes after being a 2012 US Club Soccer National Champion and the runner-up in the 2014 championship.
After the A&M loss, Marckese actually replaced Tysinger in goal for back-to-games, a 4-0 road shutout at Jacksonville, followdd by a 4-1 defeat of Ole Miss, but two days after the win over the Rebels it was Tysinger back in the box for the Gators. UF won 6-1.
Has the uncertainty with knowing the possible future in net is waiting in the wings strained their relationship?
Not quite.
“Our relationship is I'm her biggest fan and she's my biggest fan,” Marckese said. “I'm immensely happy for her when she's in the game…even if she makes an error I'm just there for her and I know she is for me, too.”
Forget looking over her shoulder, Tysinger was the first person Marckese met on her official visit. Marckese said she's her closest friend on the team and that they have a special relationship because of how often they're together.
Tysinger is long past the stage of worrying about starting time. Her goals are set. She plans on doing more missionary trips in the future and will hopefully go to grad school once she graduates in December.
Until then, the MVP of the bench the past three years will try to lead the best she can on the field. If she happens to get sent back, disappointment would be one of the last things to cross her mind.
“As much as I want to play, it doesn't define me,” Tysinger said. “I know I still have worth and value to the team.”
