Cleats to chemicals, and back again

"She watched from the sideline, she played the game.

Now Sarah McClellan is back on the sideline, this time as Binghamton University’s women’s head soccer coach.

McClellan traces the dirt on her cleats back to her childhood in Maryland, to a time when she always wanted to do what her older siblings did.

She first mimicked her sister by attempting gymnastics, but quit after a month.

“I hated it. Plus, I was really bad at it,” McClellan said.

So as a fast and athletic five- to six-year-old, McClellan set her eyes on the sport her brother played: soccer.

Something clicked.

When she was eight and nine, McClellan played for a female coach who would always pull her aside before a game and ask what position she wanted to play, which McClellan said was left wing, up top as an attacker.

“She recognized that I was very good,” McClellan said.

This coach helped McClellan develop a passion for soccer.

“For every player that plays this sport and really loves it, there is a time in their life that everything is just like, ‘This is it, soccer is it for me,’” McClellan said.

McClellan said she’d ask some of her players when they knew soccer was for them.

“They would have to think about it, but there is a time and they would come back to me the next day and say, ‘It was … ,’” she said.

For McClellan — one moment, one game — soccer clicked when, at eight years old, she played for that coach. McClellan vividly remembers that moment.

While playing left wing, she watched as the ball was played to the right side of the field.

Thoughts raced through her mind.

“It’s out of my position. Do I go for it and hope that no one gets mad at me?” McClellan remembered asking herself.

She made that tough decision and ran clear across the field, knowing she was going to get there first. She dribbled past the defenders, dribbled past the goalkeeper and sent the ball to the back of the net.

“I didn’t celebrate,” McClellan said with a hint of laughter. “I was a little bit nervous about what everyone was going to say.”

But there was uproar in the crowd.

“I was like, ‘Oh, that is awesome. I can do whatever I want, make my own decisions and it’s OK when I am on the field.’”

YEARS PASSED

McClellan, as a senior in high school, had played travel premier soccer for several years. She grew up with teammates she played with on the same club team since she was 12. They played at the highest level of competition for their age, but to them, they were just having fun.

Now McClellan wanted to play college soccer.

“[The problem was that] I never really knew the process of going to college. So I was just walking around blind as far as playing for college,” she said.

McClellan’s finesse with the ball on her premier club team caught the eye of several Division I schools, including Towson, UMBC and Maryland. But Bridgewater College, a Division III school, offered her an academic full ride in 1999, and their persistence convinced her.

“[Bridgewater’s] coach called me once every week for about four or five months,” she said.

But McClellan’s tenure at Bridgewater was short. They could no longer offer her what she wanted.

“As much as the girls were fun to play with, I thought I was just wasting my time if I was just playing soccer and wasn’t getting better.”

She felt the need to move on.

McClellan reconnected with Maryland’s coaching staff, including head coach Shannon Higgins-Cirovski, who had recruited McClellan when she was in high school.

“I asked if they had a spot for me, if I could come to preseason and let me play at the highest level possible,” she said.

McClellan knew Maryland would be no walk in the park, but she didn’t care.

It was exactly what she wanted.

She told Shannon that she wasn’t going to be satisfied with sitting on the bench; she wanted to be challenged every day to be able to play at the Division I level.

That was the way Shannon operated.

“She never wanted you to be satisfied, and if you were satisfied, you were probably going to be benched the next day,” McClellan said. “My kind of mentality worked right into her philosophy.”

Three of the most competitive years of McClellan’s life had passed.

Maryland was in the top 25 in the nation. But there were downsides, too. McClellan suffered from chronic injuries — ankle tendinitis and shin splints — and was restricted to a walking boot during her senior year.

“I wore [the boot] around campus, my house, to practice, to the locker room, to the field, and when I got to the field, I could exchange my boot for my cleats and play,” she said.

Although she wasn’t in top condition, she pushed through practices because the Terps needed the help.

Growing up in a generation that watched Mia Hamm, the face of women’s soccer, McClellan never thought she would get to that level. But one spring, the Terps hosted a WUSA team and McClellan played against Hamm.

“I actually marked her, which was really cool,” McClellan said.

At every home game for Maryland, a man named Pat Noel waited at the edge of the track to talk to McClellan.

Noel, a director of a local soccer club, wanted her to coach a youth soccer team after she graduated. Every time McClellan declined the offer. But after her last career game, which Maryland lost, McClellan described the moment as a surreal experience.

“All of a sudden it is over and all the seniors walked off the field, kind of misguided as to what we do now,” she said.