"I just think it's a beautiful game," she says, then adding the requisite amount of humility, she adds, "You don't have to be very good to play soccer. It's a game that's more suited to my capabilities."

"I like team sports because I like the feeling of being supported. I have the tendency to choke when I feel all the pressure's on me," she says.

Charm and Power

But such modesty merely adds charm to the center of an offensive powerhouse that includes co-captain Julie Brynteson, speedster Ellen Hart and explosive Cat Ferrante. Her humility disarms any jealousy you could have for the player whose scoring potency has made her a media attraction, the Ivy woman athlete of the week in mid-October, and the lucky attacker who'll go down in the record books as having scored both goals in Harvard's historic 2-0 shutout of Brown in the fourth game of the 1978 season.

Yet Sue St. Louis, like any of us, lives not by humility alone. She delights in discussing her little-used but favorite stunt--a hot-dogging, over-the-head bicycle kick that almost gave her a wild goal against Princeton. She also likes the recognition she gets because of her accomplishments.

Status for Sport

"Sometimes I kind of wish I wasn't known as 'Sue St. Louis the soccer player.' It would be nice to be so multi-faceted that I might be called 'Sue St. Louis the great thinker' once in a while--or something like that," she says. "But it's nice to at least have some kind of status."

"I've gotten a great deal of attention, and I do enjoy it. It's a new experience for me," she adds.

The small-town girl who spends summers as a free-lance professional cake decorator ("It's my own private art form") and takes time away from soccer by playing house basketball and then varsity lacrosse, appears to be obsessed with making herself a complete athlete.

Democracy in Action

While marveling at the beauty of soccer, which she labels "THE democratic sport," she simultaneously keeps that gutsy edge which prompts her coach to praise her as a "fierce competitor."

Consistently, she looks to round out her abilities. Haunted by a fear of being labeled a selfish player, she emphasizes her diligent attempts to learn how to master the team concept she seems to regard so highly.

"In the position I play, if I don't score I feel I've failed," she says.

Learning to Pass

But then she adds, "This summer I played with a men's team where most of the men were much better than I was." And that training, she says, was the most helpful, because, "I had to learn to pass."

There's just no way to argue with such a desire to improve.