Tenacious. Perhaps that is the best word to describe Laurie Gregg, on the soccer field and off.

She is the epitome of the women's soccer player, multi-talented and with an exceptional sense for how the game should be played. And she plays the game as hard as anyone ever has.

As for outside the white lines, just how many people do you know who, on their own, have been vegetarians since they were ten years old? How many ten year olds are there who could make a decision like that? And Laurie has not had one bite of meat, fish or chicken since that day back in fifth grade when she told her mother she was a vegetarian from then on.

"I guess when I set my mind to something, I just stick to it," she says with a smile.

Smiles come easily to Laurie Gregg, just as her soccer talents do. The visiting junior from Lehigh has blended right into the Harvard women's soccer team, to the benefit of both. As if anyone ever doubted that she would.

When she arrived at Lehigh two years ago as a freshman, Laurie Gregg had a special plan in mind. But she just kidded about it and let the events take their course.

The problem was that at Lehigh, women's soccer is only a club sport, and not much of a club sport at that.

Laurie found that out right away. "We not only didn't have soccer players--we didn't have athletes," she says. "And you couldn't really demand that much from the players, because you weren't giving them that much."

The team even had to buy its own uniforms and balls. After one week, it all became too much for Laurie and she "just up and left." And that's when Plan B went into effect. She decided to go to the tryouts for the men's J.V. team. She had been training hard over the summer for just such a possibility. But was she ready?

"At the first meeting, I got a lot of stares and laughs. I could have been the manager for all anybody cared. But by the end of tryouts I had earned everyone's respect." And, more importantly, a spot on the team.

"They saw that all I really wanted was to play soccer," she says. And when other teams showed up to play Lehigh, it was an experience.

"You'd see them look at me as I went by, and then they'd look again," she says. "But then after the games I would get a lot of nice comments."

Laurie never started a game for the men's team (the coach told her that her skills were equal to or better than a lot of the players, but that speed was a big factor against her), but in her freshman year she did score a goal, against Allentown State.

"Our team was psyched," she says. And her parents had made the trip down from Wellesley, where Laurie has lived since she was ten years old, for the game. So the goal was extra special. However, something was missing for her at Lehigh.

A Change