A sweeper for her high school soccer team, Le said that the kicks she took for the football team were similar to some of the long balls she would play in soccer. However, the California native said that playing football made adjusting to some aspects of soccer more difficult.
“After football season, I couldn’t shoot at all,” Le laughs. “I would go and just be kicking field goals over and over for an hour or two hours at a time during the season and when I got back to playing soccer, every shot would go way over the goal. Football definitely affected soccer much more than soccer affected football.”
SPECIAL MEMORIES
Lewis said his favorite memory of Le’s time at St. Xavier’s was her first PAT attempt in a game, where she was sandwiched on both sides by rushing defenders but kept her focus on the football, splitting the uprights with the kick.
“Just like Mai, she didn’t take her eyes off the ball and kicked it right through,” Lewis said. “She would never focus on the players around her—just on the ball and her kick.”
Although Le talks about hitting a 45-yard field goal in practice, she said her favorite memory of playing football was the only tackle that she made in a game.
“There was one player on the other team Coach told me not to kick it to,” Le remembers. “Of course, my kick ended up going right to him—literally, the ball dropped into his hands. He ran through the entire team and he was going down our sideline and I ran over and I managed to bring him down. I have never seen a boy get on his feet so fast.”
Ironically enough, Le said that she only began to practice tackling drills after she executed it in a game.
“The coach made sure that I was in tackling drills from then on,” Le said. “I laid out a freshman in the first drill but I’m hoping I never have to tackle again, that way I can keep my 100% streak going. Nobody has ever broken [a Mai Le tackle].”
MOVING FORWARD
Entrenched on the girl’s soccer team at Harvard now, Le has brought the same qualities that led her to success in high school, according to teammate and blockmate, sophomore goalkeeper Bethany Kanten.
“I think what really separates Mai as a good teammate is that her work ethic is crazy,” Kanten said. “She works harder than any other person…and you know she will bring one hundred percent every day. She’s never going to let herself go through the motions; she’s always trying to get better.”
Back at Xavier Prep, Lewis added that Le started a tradition, and that although nobody has had her success at the varsity level, the team has employed female kicker for portions of every year since she left.
“Girls have tried to follow suit,” Lewis said. “One started when she first got there but her father stood in the way of her continuing with football. She was a soccer player and unlike Mai’s family, he didn’t want her doing anything other than soccer. We’ve had people asking about it, and this past year we had an incoming player that was planning to play before tearing her ACL. We hope that she’ll be back this year.”
Le, who wrote about playing football on her college application, said that she learned a lot from playing football that went beyond the Friday night lights. A four-year captain and Most Valuable Player of her high school soccer team, Le explained that football taught her a lot about being on a team.
“It was such a defining moment for me playing [on the football team],” Le said. “I learned how to be totally team-oriented and not about myself. In high school, every player who has some measure of success in these sports begins to be placed on a pedestal, and it was actually much better preparation for coming to college sports than my team dynamic in soccer.”
Le smiles when asked if she considered playing football in college, responding that although she learned a lot from playing football at St. Xavier’s, she never seriously contemplated trying out for the Crimson and is reluctant to mention it even to her current teammates.
“I don’t mention that I played football in high school to [my teammates],” Le said. “It’s a very team oriented kind of mentality in soccer, and, that being the case, I don’t want to promote individuals above the team.”
Fresh off of practice, Le is fittingly dressed from head to toe in her Harvard soccer outfit, her current focus. Looking towards the football field, she adds one final comment.
“It’s a fun fact to drop, but that’s not why I’m on this side of the river.”