#TitleIX50: Blue Raider Soccer's Laura Miguez-Howarth

Growing up in Texas, something you learn at a very young age is the importance of football. They say everything is bigger in Texas, and football is a great example of that. Many young boys grow up to become heroes in their small Texas towns as they lead their schools to glory. To most, football is a man's game. To some, including me, however, I'd argue that it's a game for anyone in the world.

As a young girl in Texas, I spent most of my free time kicking around a soccer ball. Sure, it's probably not the football you were thinking about when you first started reading this, but this football is just as important and life changing as the traditional game of American football, and it gives lots of young girls like me the opportunity to grow up and learn the same life lessons that help us become successful women and leaders in our communities.

Growing up in such close proximity to Dallas, I had the fortune of playing against some of the best players in the state of Texas, and the schools and clubs I played on growing up rivaled that of any in the entire country. My dad helped me get started in soccer in the first grade, which is where I met the first coach that had a major impact on me: Mary Becker.

Coach Becker had a few older girls herself that were good players, but she instilled competitiveness and a love for the game in myself and my teammates at an early age. In fact, there were three of us that went on to play collegiately who played for her growing up.

As this all relates to Title IX, I'd have to say that the number one thing I took away from being one of those three was that Title IX and college soccer let me live out a dream.

That dream started at a very young age, but I began to realize it in high school when I played both school and club soccer. Traveling the country with my club team, I got to visit colleges and, at the time, both the men's and women's U.S. National teams were finally starting to gain some steam.

Really, honestly, I'd say it wasn't until I was in my teenage years that soccer really began to gain popularity in the United States. In 1994, I got to see the men's national team in person in Dallas, and of course I drew so much inspiration from the 1999 women's team. Seeing players like Mia Hamm, Brandi Chastain and Kristine Lilly inspire a whole generation helped re-affirm my dream of playing soccer at the highest level that I could.

Ultimately, I wound up at MTSU and had no idea just how far we would go in my career as a Blue Raider.

The first few seasons were hard not only for the team, but for me. Yes, my numbers may have been decent, but I had to quickly realize that I was no longer the "hotshot," that I'd been on many of my teams growing up. Thankfully, the staff, coaches, professors and my teammates all helped me learn how to be a leader through hard work and setting the right example for those around me.

Our strength coach, Darren Edgington, pushed me passed limits that I thought I'd never achieve, and it helped me learn how to dig deep when you don't think there is anything left in the tank.

I wouldn't have realized my full potential and became the player I did without teammates like Claire Ward pushing me around and forcing me to work for position, Debs Brereton for smoking me when we ran sprints and Jess Northcutt for not allowing me to ever get a good shot on goal in practice.

Prior to the 2004 championship season, I can remember sitting in a preseason meeting and Head Coach Aston Rhoden telling us that we were going to win a conference championship. To be 100 percent honest, I wasn't exactly a believer that day sitting in that meeting. That day was the most pivotal in my entire career because, looking back, it showed me to always believe and fight no matter what the odds. We went from an eight-win team in 2002 to a conference champion in 2004.

I had no idea that with everyone's help and support that I'd eventually be named one of the all-time best Sun Belt Conference soccer players and would become an MTSU Sports Hall of Famer. On paper, these are individual awards, but to me they reflect what we accomplished as a team. We all became leaders and trailblazers for what MTSU soccer is today, and I take so much pride in that.

The girls now have their own stadium and aren't driving over to the rec fields behind Womack Lane to practice. There have been so many other great players come through this program, and it makes me so happy to see that Coach Rhoden is still there leading the program and impacting so many young women as he did with me.

I have two kids of my own that play soccer now, and when I think of my daughter in particular, it makes me excited to see what the future holds for her because of Title IX. She is going to have the opportunity just like I did to try and play soccer in college if she wants to. She is a fierce player, just like I was, and to see how far the game has come and the growth that girls' soccer has experienced since I was her age is mind-blowing. Just like the game of football is to those small towns in Texas, the game of soccer has really become the same thing for young women all around the United States.

Living my dream of playing soccer helps me continue to succeed in life, even today. Every day I have the opportunity to surround myself with individuals who are driven toward a common goal is 100 percent what I do today as an educator. Soccer allowed me to fail and succeed growing up. It taught me to compete and to never give up.

I can't thank soccer enough for what it's given myself and my family. It's truly been a blessing, and it's so cool to think about just how much more growth that it's going to continue to have moving forward. Over the next 50 years, I hope Title IX continues letting young girls like me have the chance to live their Texas football dreams, even if it's a round football!

Middle Tennessee State University Athletics

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