Kelly Cobb's exceptional soccer skills enable her to run away from the competition in many Alaska high school soccer matches.
Photo by Carl Auer
has had to go "outside" to get inside America's top soccer realm.
It's hard enough to make the U.S. National U-20 women's soccer team, earn a scholarship to Duke and secure a spot on the PARADE All-American Team. It takes the usual bundle of talent, determination and connections to do all that, and not many players possess enough of those ingredients to earn those accomplishments.
What makes Cobb so special is that she has all those traits, and has accomplished all those spectacular achievements without living in the contiguous 48 states. It requires a much different training and travel regimen compared to pretty much every other elite player.
It requires leaving the confines of America's least-densely populated state.
As Alaskans say, it requires going "outside" the boundaries and into the lower 48.
The
Chugiak (Eagle River, Alaska) senior lives in a place where snow and cold relegate soccer to indoor venues for many months each year. When kids in Florida, Texas and California are out playing winter soccer on grass fields in sunny weather, Cobb is practicing in gymnasiums and the Alaska Dome, which is Anchorage's indoor sports venue and is the largest air-supported structure in North America.
Kelly Cobb needs more than just gamesto stay at a national-caliber level. Her practice schedule goes above and beyondwhat many players do because of howfar Alaska is from many soccer hotbeds.
Photo by Carl Auer
"I work out when I can, when the field is open at The Dome. During the winter that's all I have," Cobb said. "At the high school I practice in the tiniest little gym and it's frustrating on a basketball-size floor. It's not the same as practicing on a field."
Alaska just isn't hospitable to outdoor soccer year-round. And that can stifle growth for some players. So Cobb and her family travel the nation for club tournaments and concentrate on doing the little things while in The Last Frontier.
Her father, Gardner Cobb, has found unique ways to challenge his 5-foot-9 daughter and help her get better because of the lack of consistent high-caliber competition.
"One of the things we can do up here is get technically sound and work on a lot of ballhanding drills. A guy in the military was here from Panama and he taught me a lot," said Gardner Cobb, who played college football at Cincinnati. "What she can't get up here is playing against top-notch players. She's got to play with boys teams up here to get that."
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