Meghan Scudero balances roles to prove both the pen and the soccer ball are mighty

Meghan Scudero grew up wanting to become the president someday, but that was before she committed to play Division I soccer.

Fast forward two years: The junior transferred to UCLA to become a writer.

“When I was applying to schools to transfer back out, I had no idea whether I was going to play (soccer) or not,” Scudero said. “I just applied through academics.”

Scudero played her freshman year of soccer at San Diego State before suffering a back injury that forced her to return home to San Jose, California, where she attended community college at De Anza College.

Scudero enrolled in different English classes at De Anza that rekindled her childhood passion for writing poetry with her dad and grandmother.

“(Writing is) a very big thing within my family. … It’s kind of a generational thing,” Scudero said. “Even at (my grandmother’s) funeral, my tribute was poems. My parents always told me, ‘Oh you’re really good, keep doing it,’ but I never really thought much of it.”

English professor Julie Pesano, who taught two of Scudero’s classes on composition and literature at De Anza, said Scudero always sat in the front row of the lecture hall and was one of her most promising students.

“(Scudero) literally got the highest grade in the class – she was just outstanding,” Pesano said. “I’m always trying to convince people who just have such a talent for English to become English majors.”

So Scudero became an English major at De Anza.

There, the then-sophomore student met someone that would change her future goals and shaped a story Scudero plans to eventually write.

Scudero’s novel will be a biography of this person with some fictional details woven into the story and will touch on themes involving the LGBTQ community, Scudero said. When asked about the purpose of her novel, Scudero said the main theme is to preserve one’s identity even if others don’t accept it.

“Identity and how certain people close within your life – people who you would expect to accept you for who you are – sometimes don’t,” Scudero said. “This person took a route to overcome that, stuck to who they are, made a lot of different sacrifices – all to stay true to who they feel that they are.”

Pesano recalled themes of alienation and ostracization in Scudero’s coursework. Scudero has the ability to empathize with oppressed characters and represent them in her writing despite not sharing their experience, she said.

“It was just interesting again because it’s the same theme of really looking at the underdog and trying to appreciate their experience,” Pesano said. “She’s really feeling some compassion for people who are underrepresented and underserved.”

However, in some ways, Scudero has followed a similar path as the protagonist of her novel.

The novel will involve the protagonist’s struggle through the collegiate athletics recruiting process, something Scudero experienced herself. Scudero said she didn’t enjoy her freshman year of soccer as much as she had hoped and decided to find a new path at De Anza.

“(It’s) the idea that you think that one path is destined for you, and then maybe it might end up to be something else,” Scudero said. “Being OK with that is a big part of life.”

Scudero has kept the subject and details of her novel under wraps from even those close to her.

Pesano said she doesn’t know whom the novel is about because De Anza has such a diverse community that a number of students could have been in a similar situation.

“In some ways I’m hoping that maybe (Scudero) was exposed to a world at De Anza that she might not have been (exposed to) if she went to a very kind of Ivy League, homogeneous school,” Pesano said.

Scudero said she is currently in the process of compiling evidence and anecdotes for the novel. She FaceTimes her future protagonist to gather more information and to better understand her subject’s experience.

Scudero is simultaneously in season for UCLA women’s soccer and has played in 10 games this season for the Bruins. The redshirt sophomore midfielder was not recruited to play soccer at UCLA, but reached out to the coaches to start training with the team.

Coach Amanda Cromwell said that Scudero’s desire to improve makes her a valuable addition to the team.

“She’s just a sponge of wanting to get knowledge and learn more about the game and be a student of the game,” Cromwell said. “Any kind of player like that is a coach’s dream, because they’re very coachable and you can see the improvement.”

Scudero keeps her writing separate from her involvement on the team and said she plans to wait until the novel is complete before telling her teammates about it. But Scudero said her teammates may serve as inspiration for her writing.

“There’s a lot of different strong personalities on the team – from those I can draw inspiration for certain characters that I might add in,” Scudero said.

Scudero said the most difficult part of balancing her academic and professional pursuits with athletics is the road trips, when there is limited time for activities other than soccer.

But, she uses her craft as a way to temporarily forget about her stress.

“Finding new places to go get coffee and do my homework or read or write is probably how I just keep myself sane,” Scudero said. “When I open up a book it’s my escape from everything.”

Scudero said she hopes to create a similar escape for anyone who reads her writing, which she hopes will help them through a hard time.

“As I’ve been getting older, I feel like there’s so much in the world that is so bad sometimes,” Scudero said. “I feel like the way that I can be impactful toward people is writing.”

Scudero intends to finish her novel by the time she graduates from UCLA and said that a dream of hers is to have her book turned into a screenplay.

But Scudero said she’s keeping her options open to see what other doors studying English may present to her.

So, Scudero’s path will continue evolving – even if a presidential campaign is no longer in her future.