Robin Johnston, co-captain of the Harvard women's soccer team, looks pretty good on paper.

The senior forward was been the leading scorer in the Ivy League both as a sophomore and as a junior.

She holds the Harvard record for most goals scored in a game (with four), a feat she achieved last year against Columbia.

In fact, Johnston's soccer accomplishments go back before her Harvard career--the Colorado native was the state's leading scorer for two years in high school.

Yes, she looks good on paper. But the paper doesn't tell the whole story.

Contrary to what one might think of such a successful athlete, Johnston is a woman who keeps soccer in perspective.

"I play soccer because I love the game," Johnston says. "The minute I stop having fun on the field is the minute I'll stop playing. I don't play for the stats. I couldn't even tell you my stats. I play for me."

A great deal of this insight came to her in the weeks following October 4, 1987.

In her senior year in high school, Johnston was playing with her club soccer team five days before it was scheduled to compete in the Washington Area Girls' Soccer Tournament (WAGS).

The WAGS served as a recruiting ground for dozens of college coaches, many of whom already had their eye on the young Johnston.

But that afternoon, Johnston snapped her anterior cruciate ligament, incurring one of the most feared injuries in sports.

The anterior cruciate ligament is one of the two ligaments in the knee that provide the stability which holds the knee together.

"The anterior ligament ensures that the lower leg does not ride forward of and above the thigh bone," Harvard Athletic Trainer Dick Emerson said. "It is a very significant injury."

The doctors told Johnston her high school soccer career was over, and that it would be six months to a year before she could play again if she was lucky.

If surgery were unsuccessful, they told her, she might never be able to play sports again.