Women’s soccer’s Courtney Proctor up to speed after ACL injury

Heading into her sophomore year, UCLA women’s soccer player Courtney Proctor was primed for a breakout season.

After struggling in her freshman year, the forward worked tirelessly in the offseason to prepare for the next season; She said she wanted to have a bigger impact on the team and produce for the coaching staff that had invested in her.

Proctor was beginning to see the results of her hard work during the preseason before her second year.

Then she tore her ACL.

The injury occurred when the team was practicing passing patterns. Proctor went for the ball as then-freshman goalkeeper Cassie Sternbach came out from the box and Proctor, to avoid landing on Sternbach, jumped over the now-redshirt freshman goalkeeper.

Proctor remembers that, as she was landing, she thought that her knee was broken, but as she sat on the grass, the knee looked straight. At that moment, she knew it was what she was dreading: an ACL injury.

“I was crying,” Proctor said. “Yeah it hurt – it hurt really bad – but I wasn’t crying because of that. I was crying because I knew I was done. It was one week into it and I was already out.”

Proctor redshirted the year so that she could get an extra season. She felt lucky to have another opportunity to play with the Bruins, but admitted that staying an extra year has a bittersweet feeling because the recruiting class she came in with will be leaving next year.

Despite the setback, Proctor said she always had an optimistic outlook and saw her injury as a silver lining.

“I look back at it now and I’m glad that it happened. I’m not glad that I tore it, but it’s a very positive thing that came out of it,” said Proctor, a redshirt sophomore.

“You learn to love the game more and you learn what it is like when you are not able to play, because sometimes as athletes you go through moments when you’re like, ‘Ugh, I do not want to practice right now.’ This season I have not had that thought once, and so that has helped and it helped me create a bigger bond with teammates.”

Peter Proctor, Courtney Proctor’s father, also saw the bright side of the injury and believes that an injury can have positive outcomes, but he said he imagines it was difficult for his daughter to be sidelined.

“I thought to myself, ‘(Injuries) are great things,’ because by sitting on the sidelines, by watching the game, watching your opponents, and studying them … you see what you can do to defeat them when you get in there,” Peter Proctor said.

“As athletes, you want to be scoring – you want to help the team win in every way you can. I imagine she would have been like, ‘Man, I can’t do anything to help the team here,’ or, ‘I wish I was in there and being part of the success.’ I bet she felt the pain of that.”

Her father was right. It was difficult for Courtney Proctor to not play with the team, but she quickly changed her attitude and got to work so that she could have a swift recovery.

“To be honest, I never went through a depression. I never felt sorry for myself. You cannot think about the bad stuff that has happened, you just got to figure out how you are going to fix it and how you are going to pass it,” Proctor said.

“So that was always my mindset. Basically the way I got through it (was by) just constantly thinking about the things I needed to do to get it better, just trying to be there for my team because I couldn’t do anything – the only thing I could do was be a support system for them.”

The off-the-field support that Proctor brought for her teammates is something that junior goalkeeper and Proctor’s best friend Katelyn Rowland remembers of the forward.

“She’s always so supportive,” Rowland said. “Even though she was hurt sitting on the sidelines, we always heard her voice. She’s very vocal, she’s very loud, so it was great to hear her in the field game.”

Proctor’s discipline during her recovery made her dedication to soccer more evident. Even though it is her first year as head coach, Amanda Cromwell saw Proctor’s talent and commitment to the game.

“I heard about her as a very dynamic, fast forward that could score goals and just cause havoc so I was excited to see her,” Cromwell said.

“You can tell that she is just very passionate about the game. It’s exciting to have her back and have her full strength and I think she’s actually just hitting her stride right now.”

Now that the regular season has ended and playoffs have started, Proctor said that she is pleased with her overall performance this season coming off the injury, but that she is not at her full potential yet. Her goal is to work toward getting more minutes and scoring goals. And playoffs seem to be a perfect time to recover her potential and peak.

Even as she is working toward her individual success, what Proctor learned about the importance of working as a team when she was injured is still evident. She smiled just thinking about what it would be like to have an impact on the team and win UCLA women’s soccer’s first national championship.

“First of all, to make history for this program (and win the national championship) would be unreal, and then to be able to do it with a group of girls that I personally have grown toward to being my sisters – each and every single one of them is like a part of me – it’s indescribable,” Proctor said.