Lesley Garvey stood on the sidelines last week at Northeastern University in a black hooded sweatshirt as her Boston University teammates came off the field for a break before overtime. She took aside freshman back Erica Lee and talked to her for about a minute concerning her play. Instead of playing in one of the most important games of the season for the BU women’s soccer team, she was acting the role of a quasi-assistant coach.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way for Garvey, the back from New York. Not in her senior year and not when she was a captain. She should’ve been wearing a red shirt with the number nine on the front and back. She should’ve been heading a ball that was up for grabs away from an opposing team’s forward. She should’ve been one of the main reasons why BU has as good a chance as any team to win the America East Tournament, to be held Friday and Sunday at Nickerson Field.
But the script for the ending to Garvey’s time at BU has changed and all Garvey can do is make the most of it. The distinguished career of one of the best recruits coach Nancy Feldman has ever landed came to an end a few weeks early.
On Oct. 24 in a game against the University of Hartford, Garvey was making a play for the ball when Hartford’s Jeanette Akerlund kicked her in the knee. Garvey crumpled to the ground in pain. After being attended to for five minutes, she limped off the field with the help of the trainer and a teammate. She didn’t know it at the time, but with 6:45 left in the first half, she had played her last second as a Terrier.
The diagnosis came a few days later. She had torn the ACL and meniscus as well as stretched the MCL in her right knee.
‘You have to get past it,’ Garvey said, not even two weeks after the injury. ‘I don’t feel sorry for myself. It’s all how you react, otherwise you’ll be a mess.’
The Terriers have already felt the loss of Garvey, having to shuffle their lineup to fill the void on defense. Her roommate, redshirt sophomore forward Melissa Shulman, saw her as one of those indispensable players every team needs.
‘She’s one of the best players I’ve played with in a long time,’ Shulman said. ‘She controls the field and reads the game so well.’
Garvey doesn’t fill up a stat sheet like her roommate, but her play on defense is fearless. A typical Garvey play includes a dash to the middle to disrupt a ball-controlling opponent and forcing a turnover. But at least for Shulman, Garvery’s shining moment came against the University of Delaware two years ago.
‘It was a really windy day and she scored a goal from like 30 yards out with her left foot,’ Shulman described. ‘It was just a great hit on the ball. A great shot.’
Garvey’s attitude and demeanor have always impressed Feldman just as much as all the back’s physical talents.
‘Lesley is one of the most special athletes and one of the greatest sportsmen I’ve ever coached,’ Feldman said. ‘It’s amazing when an athlete is on the same page as a coach. It’s unusual, but that’s the way it is with Lesley.
‘I’ve often picked her brain about tactical matters and adjustments, and I don’t do that with every player,’ she added.
That extra soccer sense is something Garvey credits to her father William, who guided Lesley and her older sister. When it came time for the standout athlete to choose between track, field hockey and soccer, it wasn’t much of a choice, even if her first recruitment letter was for field hockey.
‘I was basically born with a soccer ball in my crib,’ Garvey said.
NARROWING DOWN TO ‘THE NICK’
Garvey explained her choice of BU as something that was also a no-brainer.
‘During my recruiting, I just really clicked. I liked coach’s style, so it really drew me. Plus, the city of Boston was nice,’ Garvey said. ‘[Feldman] had told me that I would have a good shot at starting. It’s obviously not something she could guarantee, but that’s another reason why I came.’
While Garvey’s school choice may have seemed like a no-brainer for her, it was anything but for Feldman. She was stunned that an All-Region player in Region I (Maine to Virginia to western Pennsylvania) would be interested in coming to BU.
‘Those types of players weren’t knocking down the doors to come here,’ Feldman said. ‘She initiated contact with us, and I got a letter from her saying she was interested and I said, ‘Oh my God.’
‘I called her up and I said, ‘You’re really interested in Boston University?’ I was kind of like, ‘Why are you interested?’ There must be some catch,’ Feldman said.
Once Feldman got to know Garvey a little bit better, it became apparent why BU was such a good fit for her. The academics were appealing and so was life in the city.
‘I think she saw her sister [Shannon] go to a high-level program [the University of Virginia] and she had some difficulties, so she wanted to go to a place that was more than just soccer,’ Feldman said. ‘Plus you could tell she loves to play, and she wanted to play right away at a place with high standards for soccer.’
NOT YOUR TYPICAL FRESHMAN
From the moment Garvey stepped onto the field freshman year she felt comfortable, and that comfort level has shown in her play. She started her first game freshman year at Pacific University and until this season’s injuries forced her out of the lineup at the beginning of the season, she had started every game she played at BU.
Her freshman year, she earned accolades that helped her live up to her expectations as a highly touted recruit, being named to the America East All-Conference Second Team, as well as the All-Tournament Team and All-Rookie Team.
But that freshman year was a harbinger of things to come for Garvey, as she was nagged by injuries throughout the year. She sat out BU’s NCAA Tournament second round game against Dartmouth with a hamstring injury, a game the Terriers lost 4-1.
‘It was tough to just have to sit there and watch,’ Garvey said. ‘Going into the game, we were just on a roll and the whole team was on cloud nine.’
Garvey would have to get used to sitting there and watching. She sat out practice season in the spring of her freshman and sophomore years with a chronic back injury. While she started all of her team’s games in the fall of both her sophomore and junior years, her back was still nagging her.
After last season, when she was honored by the conference as a Second Team All-Star and by her team as BU’s Outstanding Defensive Player, Garvey was finally able to practice in the spring. But a collision with backup goalkeeper Rebekah Conway sidelined Garvey for months with a fractured right kneecap.
LEADING BY EXAMPLE
When she arrived last August, Garvey was still rehabbing her knee and when the season started she hadn’t even begun to get into game shape. She started to put more stock in her role as a leader and just as Teresa Petrucelli (who graduated in 2002) had taken Garvey under her wing when she arrived in August of 2000, the captain took a young freshman under her own wing.
‘Erica [Lee] came in and she had a starting position as a back just like I did,’ Garvey said. ‘I like to think that I helped her and guided her and answered questions for her.’
Still, Garvey had to adjust to sitting out consecutive games for the first time in her career. But the captain set a goal for herself: start against Harvard on Sept. 30.
She beat that date by a game, starting on Sept. 27 against the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, a feat Feldman called ‘remarkable.’ It was a moment before a game at the University at Albany in October that sticks out in Feldman’s mind as one of Garvey’s best at BU.
Albany had only scored four goals all season and had only one win. The Terriers weren’t focused since they thought it would be an easy victory, according to Feldman. But the coach heard Garvey, who usually doesn’t say much, talking to her teammates before the game to get them ready.
‘I heard her say all throughout warmups, ‘C’mon, let’s go, let’s get focused,” Feldman said. ‘She knows it’s not about the other team, but how we want to play.’
BU beat Albany, 4-0, in a game Feldman believes Garvey’s leadership helped the team win. Moments like that show why Feldman had a special message for her team after Garvey disclosed her season-ending diagnosis in late October.
‘I said, ‘Hopefully you appreciate and recognize how Lesley carried herself at BU,” Feldman said. ‘Whether it was competing or preparing for practice or studying or focusing for games, I wanted to make sure they got that picture while Lesley was here.’
The three-time America East Honor Roll selection plans to finish her work at Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences next fall, as she looks toward a career as a dietician. But first, she’ll be cheering from the sidelines this weekend at the conference tournament. Then, there’s knee surgery scheduled for Tuesday.
‘Injuries were disappointing for her,’ Feldman said, looking back on Garvey’s whole career. ‘But, I have no regrets. I’d take her at 80 percent.’