By Craig Morgan, thesundevils.com Writer
TEMPE – Cali Farquharson and McKenzie Berryhill had been plotting since the spring before their senior seasons. They knew their Sun Devil soccer teammate, Lucy Lara, had only seen her mother a handful of times since moving from Texas to Arizona in 2011. They knew how much Lara missed her.
"We wanted it to be a special moment," Farquharson said, "but we wanted it to be a surprise."
It was a shock. Lara's boyfriend, Heber Mena, told her they had to go to Sky Harbor International Airport to pick up his cousin, Gabriel, who was flying in from Texas. Lara didn't want to get out of the car and when she finally agreed after persistent urging from Mena, she was miffed as she sat on the luggage carousel waiting for his cousin.
Gabriel never showed, but Lara's mom, Leonila, did. Farquharson, Berryhill and Mena had quietly worked out all the details to bring Leonila to Tempe to spend a couple days with her daughter, including the Sun Devils' Senior Day game against Oregon last year.
To understand the complexity and depth of emotions at play during that reunion, however, you have to travel the long 1,155 miles from Tempe to the dirt roads of Pickton, Texas where Lara was born and raised on a dairy farm with her sister, Alma Denise Lara, her brother, Jimmy Lara, her father, José Antonio Lara and her mom.
It was there that Lara fought through poverty, domestic violence, a torn ACL and eventually a torn home to become an improbable captain for the Sun Devils soccer team and an inspiration to every one of its players and coaches.
"I am so grateful to have been born into my family," Lara said. "As crazy as it sounds with all the things I've been through in my life, they made me who I am. My beliefs, my faith, my personality, my character are all because of them and what they sacrificed for me."
AN IMPOVERSIHED START
Pickton is an unincorporated community about halfway between Dallas and the Louisiana border in east Texas. It was settled around 1856. With a railroad stop and fertile soil, the agricultural town grew to a maximum population of 500 in the 1920s before declining to 90 in 2000 and forcing the town to combine with another to form the Como-Pickton Consolidated Independent School District.
"There were 30 people in my class and they combined the elementary school, the middle school and the high school," Lara said. "Our big thing in Pickton was we had a gas station, but we had to drive 20 minutes to Sulphur Springs for a hospital or the Wal-Mart."
Lara's parents are both Mexican immigrants. José worked with the older, larger cows on the dairy farm; Leonila worked the calves and the Laras lived in a trailer provided by the family that owned the dairy farm. The Laras had a large extended family in the area and Lucy remembers festive family gatherings in which she would play with her cousins and the family would skin a goat for dinner.
"It tasted awesome," she said. "We'd fill it with air, hang it upside down from a tree and then they'd cut out everything we didn't want. I don't remember anything about the preparation from that point on because I was too grossed out and I would just leave."
Soccer was a part of Lucy's life from early childhood. Her dad had a chance to play for a club team when he was younger, but his father told him he would have to support himself if he left home, so he quit the game to help the family. He vowed his kids wouldn't suffer the same fate.
"I played club soccer in Dallas and my parents both went to my games, but mostly my dad would drive me to practices because he wanted to be involved," Lara said. "My brother played, too, so my dad would drive the two hours to Dallas, drop my brother off for practice in one part of the city, drop me off, watch part of practice, then go back and get my brother and come back and get me. Then we'd drive the two hours home. You don't realize it until you're older but it was a huge sacrifice."
It was also costly. Lara remembers driving past a Dairy Queen on their way home from Dallas, feeling hungry and thinking aloud with Jimmy about how good it would taste. Once in a while, José gave in and bought them fast food or ice cream. Most of the time, funds were too tight due to the fuel cost of those Dallas trips, the income he and his wife were making and the cost of raising three kids. Most of Lara's meals featured frijoles and rarely included meat. For snacks, she ate corn tortillas dusted with salt.
Poverty took its toll on her parents as well.
"It tore them apart," Lara said. "There was violence in my house. My dad drank and did drugs. As you get older you become more aware of all that. You'd come home and you'd see crazy things like your dad chasing your mom around the table trying to hit her.
"I don't even know when I stopped talking to my dad but we lived in the same house and we'd walk past each other not saying a word. He coached me and literally made me into the player I am, but when all of that happened, it took its toll and my parents split up -- my dad went to Chandler to live with my uncle."
When José left, the owner of the dairy farm approached Leonila with an ultimatum: Either José returned or the family would have to leave the farm and find other work. Leonila had never worked anywhere but a dairy farm. She had no college education and no job prospects. Without the means to support three children, she made the impossible choice to send Lucy and Jimmy to live with their father and uncle in Chandler.
"I remember driving out of my driveway and seeing her and my sister crying," Lara said through tears. "The whole time I'm thinking 'when am I going to see my mom again? Am I going to see my mom again?'
"I knew at least I was going to a home in Arizona to live with my uncle, but I knew she was going to struggle. She had no idea what she was going to do."
Lara wasn't certain what fate awaited her in Arizona, either. She didn't know anyone outside the family and she had no idea that a place called Arizona State University existed. Once her coaches at the Sereno Soccer Club and Hamilton High School recognized her talents, they were on the phone to ASU coach Kevin Boyd.
"I saw this left-footed kid with really good feet who liked the ball a lot and takes people on at will," said Boyd, who offered Lara a full scholarship. "Her individual game was so much more dominant that she stood out -- she was miles better than anybody on the field."
Entering her freshman season at ASU, Lara was coming off her second torn ACL. She suffered the injury playing a scrimmage against a boys club team in Mexico City in preparation for the U20 World Cup. Her first ACL injury had cost her scholarship offers during her junior year of high school from schools like Texas A&M that had been following her club career in Texas. It also cost her a chance to play in the U17 World Cup for Mexico.
Boyd didn't get the chance to work with Lara until her sophomore season. Since then, however, he said Lara's game has steadily progressed and she is now a rock in the midfield.
"When she first got here, not only did she love the ball, but she would get it and hold onto it way too long," Boyd said. "She was too slow and too late to deliver the ball and it would just kill our rhythm.
"Five years later, she's outstanding on the ball, she has good timing and rhythm, she plays at different speeds, she's a very good dribbler and she covers a ton of ground when she plays. All of those things have evolved since she's been here but really, the credit goes to Lucy for putting the work in."
Boyd thinks Lara could play pro if she wanted to, but he knows that it is not in her plans because the pay for women in pro soccer is not high enough to sustain them for a full year.
Boyd had to convince Lara to return for her final year of eligibility because she had already earned her bachelor's degree last year and was set to get a job. To persuade her, Boyd showed her how much more someone with a master's degree can earn than someone with a bachelor's degree. Armed with that information, Lara returned and will earn her master's in sports law and business from the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law in December -- just 11 months after she began the program.
"I don't want my parents to have to work any more," Lara said. "I want to get a job and move my mom to live with me, wherever I'm living. I want to help my dad out and I want to see my sister get her degree.
"The whole time I was going to college and getting my master's, the only thing on my mind was my family."
Farquharson would like to think she and Berryhill had some role in advising Lara about the challenges of women's pro soccer, but she also knows her former teammate too well to believe that was the sole impetus for Lara's career path.
"I remember we did this thing my senior year where they asked us if we could pick one teammate to conquer the world with -- like a Mission Impossible thing -- who would we choose?" said Farquharson, who recently had surgery after a season-ending ACL tear in her rookie season with the Washington Spirit of the NWSL. "I said Lucy because whatever she sets her mind to she will accomplish.
"The fact that she wants to support her family, that just shows you her character and who she is as a human. Her faith is very strong and because of that and so many other strengths, she overcame a lot and will continue to overcome. I'm so proud of her, and I'm so incredibly proud to call her a friend."
Lara, who has scored six goals and contributed 14 assists in her 68-game career (46 starts), will take the field for the final time in her ASU career when the Sun Devils host Arizona on Friday at 3 p.m.
TEMPE – Cali Farquharson and McKenzie Berryhill had been plotting since the spring before their senior seasons. They knew their Sun Devil soccer teammate, Lucy Lara, had only seen her mother a handful of times since moving from Texas to Arizona in 2011. They knew how much Lara missed her.
"We wanted it to be a special moment," Farquharson said, "but we wanted it to be a surprise."
It was a shock. Lara's boyfriend, Heber Mena, told her they had to go to Sky Harbor International Airport to pick up his cousin, Gabriel, who was flying in from Texas. Lara didn't want to get out of the car and when she finally agreed after persistent urging from Mena, she was miffed as she sat on the luggage carousel waiting for his cousin.
Gabriel never showed, but Lara's mom, Leonila, did. Farquharson, Berryhill and Mena had quietly worked out all the details to bring Leonila to Tempe to spend a couple days with her daughter, including the Sun Devils' Senior Day game against Oregon last year.
To understand the complexity and depth of emotions at play during that reunion, however, you have to travel the long 1,155 miles from Tempe to the dirt roads of Pickton, Texas where Lara was born and raised on a dairy farm with her sister, Alma Denise Lara, her brother, Jimmy Lara, her father, José Antonio Lara and her mom.
It was there that Lara fought through poverty, domestic violence, a torn ACL and eventually a torn home to become an improbable captain for the Sun Devils soccer team and an inspiration to every one of its players and coaches.
"I am so grateful to have been born into my family," Lara said. "As crazy as it sounds with all the things I've been through in my life, they made me who I am. My beliefs, my faith, my personality, my character are all because of them and what they sacrificed for me."
AN IMPOVERSIHED START
Pickton is an unincorporated community about halfway between Dallas and the Louisiana border in east Texas. It was settled around 1856. With a railroad stop and fertile soil, the agricultural town grew to a maximum population of 500 in the 1920s before declining to 90 in 2000 and forcing the town to combine with another to form the Como-Pickton Consolidated Independent School District.
"There were 30 people in my class and they combined the elementary school, the middle school and the high school," Lara said. "Our big thing in Pickton was we had a gas station, but we had to drive 20 minutes to Sulphur Springs for a hospital or the Wal-Mart."
Lara's parents are both Mexican immigrants. José worked with the older, larger cows on the dairy farm; Leonila worked the calves and the Laras lived in a trailer provided by the family that owned the dairy farm. The Laras had a large extended family in the area and Lucy remembers festive family gatherings in which she would play with her cousins and the family would skin a goat for dinner.
"It tasted awesome," she said. "We'd fill it with air, hang it upside down from a tree and then they'd cut out everything we didn't want. I don't remember anything about the preparation from that point on because I was too grossed out and I would just leave."
Soccer was a part of Lucy's life from early childhood. Her dad had a chance to play for a club team when he was younger, but his father told him he would have to support himself if he left home, so he quit the game to help the family. He vowed his kids wouldn't suffer the same fate.
"I played club soccer in Dallas and my parents both went to my games, but mostly my dad would drive me to practices because he wanted to be involved," Lara said. "My brother played, too, so my dad would drive the two hours to Dallas, drop my brother off for practice in one part of the city, drop me off, watch part of practice, then go back and get my brother and come back and get me. Then we'd drive the two hours home. You don't realize it until you're older but it was a huge sacrifice."
It was also costly. Lara remembers driving past a Dairy Queen on their way home from Dallas, feeling hungry and thinking aloud with Jimmy about how good it would taste. Once in a while, José gave in and bought them fast food or ice cream. Most of the time, funds were too tight due to the fuel cost of those Dallas trips, the income he and his wife were making and the cost of raising three kids. Most of Lara's meals featured frijoles and rarely included meat. For snacks, she ate corn tortillas dusted with salt.
Poverty took its toll on her parents as well.
"It tore them apart," Lara said. "There was violence in my house. My dad drank and did drugs. As you get older you become more aware of all that. You'd come home and you'd see crazy things like your dad chasing your mom around the table trying to hit her.
"I don't even know when I stopped talking to my dad but we lived in the same house and we'd walk past each other not saying a word. He coached me and literally made me into the player I am, but when all of that happened, it took its toll and my parents split up -- my dad went to Chandler to live with my uncle."
When José left, the owner of the dairy farm approached Leonila with an ultimatum: Either José returned or the family would have to leave the farm and find other work. Leonila had never worked anywhere but a dairy farm. She had no college education and no job prospects. Without the means to support three children, she made the impossible choice to send Lucy and Jimmy to live with their father and uncle in Chandler.
"I remember driving out of my driveway and seeing her and my sister crying," Lara said through tears. "The whole time I'm thinking 'when am I going to see my mom again? Am I going to see my mom again?'
"I knew at least I was going to a home in Arizona to live with my uncle, but I knew she was going to struggle. She had no idea what she was going to do."
Lara wasn't certain what fate awaited her in Arizona, either. She didn't know anyone outside the family and she had no idea that a place called Arizona State University existed. Once her coaches at the Sereno Soccer Club and Hamilton High School recognized her talents, they were on the phone to ASU coach Kevin Boyd.
"I saw this left-footed kid with really good feet who liked the ball a lot and takes people on at will," said Boyd, who offered Lara a full scholarship. "Her individual game was so much more dominant that she stood out -- she was miles better than anybody on the field."
Entering her freshman season at ASU, Lara was coming off her second torn ACL. She suffered the injury playing a scrimmage against a boys club team in Mexico City in preparation for the U20 World Cup. Her first ACL injury had cost her scholarship offers during her junior year of high school from schools like Texas A&M that had been following her club career in Texas. It also cost her a chance to play in the U17 World Cup for Mexico.
Boyd didn't get the chance to work with Lara until her sophomore season. Since then, however, he said Lara's game has steadily progressed and she is now a rock in the midfield.
"When she first got here, not only did she love the ball, but she would get it and hold onto it way too long," Boyd said. "She was too slow and too late to deliver the ball and it would just kill our rhythm.
"Five years later, she's outstanding on the ball, she has good timing and rhythm, she plays at different speeds, she's a very good dribbler and she covers a ton of ground when she plays. All of those things have evolved since she's been here but really, the credit goes to Lucy for putting the work in."
Boyd thinks Lara could play pro if she wanted to, but he knows that it is not in her plans because the pay for women in pro soccer is not high enough to sustain them for a full year.
Boyd had to convince Lara to return for her final year of eligibility because she had already earned her bachelor's degree last year and was set to get a job. To persuade her, Boyd showed her how much more someone with a master's degree can earn than someone with a bachelor's degree. Armed with that information, Lara returned and will earn her master's in sports law and business from the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law in December -- just 11 months after she began the program.
"I don't want my parents to have to work any more," Lara said. "I want to get a job and move my mom to live with me, wherever I'm living. I want to help my dad out and I want to see my sister get her degree.
"The whole time I was going to college and getting my master's, the only thing on my mind was my family."
Farquharson would like to think she and Berryhill had some role in advising Lara about the challenges of women's pro soccer, but she also knows her former teammate too well to believe that was the sole impetus for Lara's career path.
"I remember we did this thing my senior year where they asked us if we could pick one teammate to conquer the world with -- like a Mission Impossible thing -- who would we choose?" said Farquharson, who recently had surgery after a season-ending ACL tear in her rookie season with the Washington Spirit of the NWSL. "I said Lucy because whatever she sets her mind to she will accomplish.
"The fact that she wants to support her family, that just shows you her character and who she is as a human. Her faith is very strong and because of that and so many other strengths, she overcame a lot and will continue to overcome. I'm so proud of her, and I'm so incredibly proud to call her a friend."
Lara, who has scored six goals and contributed 14 assists in her 68-game career (46 starts), will take the field for the final time in her ASU career when the Sun Devils host Arizona on Friday at 3 p.m.