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Eager to get back on the field
Kristine Lilly is the all-time appearance leader and third all-time leading scorer for the U.S. Women's National Team. The midfielder from Wilton, Conn., was a member of the U.S. teams that won the 1999 World Cup and 1996 Olympic Games. Lilly also played on four national championship teams at the University of North Carolina. Lilly is training for the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. Check out Lilly's diary every month on CNNSI.com.
January 9, 2000
Happy New Year! It is great to be starting a diary again and sharing it with all of you. I hope to enlighten you with my life, thoughts, stories, experiences and training for this year's Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. My sport is soccer and we (my team) have just come off a great year, winning the World Cup and making history. This summer was more than just winning a World Cup, it was winning fans and putting women's sports and soccer in the public and media eye. We had the biggest crowd to ever watch a women's sporting event -- 90,172 people. The United States took on an excellent China team at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. The game went to penalty kicks after two 15-minute overtimes. We ended up winning the penalty kicks 5 to 4. It was a moment in my career that will stay forever. Since that win the lives of our team have not been the same. So now we start the new millennium getting ready to win another gold medal. Unfortunately things have not started on such a good note. Right now I should be writing to you all from Australia, but instead I'm in my house in Connecticut, training. We did not get our contracts done with U.S. Soccer so we could not compete in our first tournament of the year. It is very upsetting because we would rather be playing. So until we get the contracts worked out, all the World Cup players are at their homes, training and getting ready to hit the field. I started my weight-training program and running on January 3rd. It has been a bit difficult for me to get the soccer ball out and do things by myself, but I'm making it happen the best way that I know. I have to say that training on your own is very difficult and gets old. The things I'm doing now are basically some coerver moves, which are moves with the ball and kicking the ball against the wall. I'm trying different things to make it exciting. Wearing my walkman is one and just keeping in mind what I am training for, the Olympics. I keep in contact with my teammates to help motivate me as well, but I'm anxious to be training with the team again. So I'm using this time to build the psychological part of my game as well. There are days where you say, "I don't feel like running" and then you fight that and say "my teammates are working hard I need to" and then you get your butt up and you tackled one obstacle. All these of instances build your mental strength, which I think, in soccer, is very important. You have to take every environment you are in and make it a positive environment for training. I want to share some fun thoughts and stories that have happened to me thus far this month. The other day I got back from lifting and the phone rings and the person says, "Kristine?" I say "Yes" and the other person says "This is Billy Jean King." And I was like "Hi!" I have met her a bunch of times through the Women Sports Foundation, and she has helped us a lot with contract problems in the past. But I was still like a little kid and I was like "Oh my gosh." So that was cool. Also a big thing happened during the holidays, my brother Scott asked his girlfriend Kim to marry him. She said yes. So I'm happy to be getting a sister-in-law. Well not too much else exciting has happened in my life but as time goes on I'm sure I'll have plenty of stories to share with you. Before I go I'd like to wish my friend Carin Gabarra a happy birthday. She was a member of the '91 World Cup team and '96 gold medal team, she is awesome. So Happy B-day Carin. I told myself this year that I was going to make things happen, both on and off the field. I'm going to make a difference and be the best I can be.
I have two mottoes:
To some of you that may mean nothing but to me it's something that I have lacked. I hope the New Year has been good so far and can only get better. Until next time smile and enjoy the simple things. -- Kristine
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