"I was more scared than in pain," Johnston said.

The injury forced Johnston to take a step back and reexamine how important soccer actually was to her.

"I had to decide what I wanted," she said. "But I decided I would miss soccer a lot if I quit. Playing soccer makes me happy."

When the doctors allowed her to finally start rehabilitating her knee, Johnston worked out a strenuous three hours every day.

"I knew I'd be back," she said. "It was all a matter of confidence."

In the meantime, she was in contact with Harvard Coach Tim Wheaton, who had gone down to the WAGS to see her play.

"Although Robin wasn't there, I talked to her coach for a long time. He said some really great things about her," Wheaton said.

Armed with this recommendation, Wheaton went ahead and recruited Johnston while most other coaches shied away.

"I felt she belonged at Harvard," Wheaton said. "Her maturity and intellectual curiosity made me feel she was Harvard's type of student.

"Although I never saw her play, I felt she was worth the risk her injury posed to her career."

While Johnston herself says that Wheaton "went out on a limb," Wheaton maintains his decision to recruit Johnston was not a gamble.

"With her great attitude, I knew she'd be back," Wheaton said.

Johnston did come back and returned with a vengeance. Although her doctors would not allow her to play in games, she participated in all of her team's practices.

That spring, wearing a cumbersome knee brace, she led her school team to the Colorado semifinals while leading the state in scoring.

At Harvard, she started as a freshman and never looked back.

"She's made a huge, huge impact on our program," Wheaton said. "Her ability to create goals by her individual effort has won a lot of games for us."

Wheaton praised her confidence as a leader even more than her talents as a player.

"As a leader, she's determined," Wheaton said. "She's got a great sense of perspective, demanding a lot from her fellow players without assuming that soccer is the only thing in their lives."

It's an attitude deeply rooted in Johnston's own conviction that soccer is not everything.

"Soccer lets me get away from it all," Johnston said. "It's kind of therapeutic, in a way."