Size-ing the opportunity

 
In Sunday’s game against Mississippi Valley State the Lady Jaguar Soccer team suffered injuries to the team, assistant coach Courtney Prather looked at her reserves and faced a sophomore walk-on who has stepped up to the task every game.
Taylor Size, a sophomore nursing major from Lafayette, has always been attached to the game of soccer.
She has been playing the game since the age of seven, and says that it is something that she can’t get away from.
Size came to Southern longing for the HBCU experience and to get a taste of life away from home just like many other students here on campus.
As a freshman she was a regular student taking up electives along with other students but something was missing.
Soccer …
Since her first time at age seven, Size has played soccer every year and her freshman year was the first time she had ever been away from the game for a entire year.
“I was missing it a lot, I never went a few months of not playing, so it was kind of rough and I enjoy being a regular student but it was kind of boring I was use to being busy,” Size said.
Without soccer to fill her day, Size contemplated what to do with her spare time.
“I was used to the routine, do your work then get ready for practice, but since I wasn’t playing it was just do your work and then now what are you going to do now? I just couldn’t get it off my mind I just have to play.”
So the next year Size decided to walk on, being away from any sport for a year will leave an athlete out of shape, and the two-mile conditioning test proved just that.
“I woke up trying to prepare myself mentally and the first exercise I had to run 2 miles,” Size said. “My mindset was like, please don’t pass out on the first day because I haven’t worked out in a whole year I wanted to keep up with everybody.”
After making it through training and working with the team, she was able to show Prather and the coaching staff that she was someone worth having on the team.
“When I found out I made the team I was like will I start? Will I actually play, but eventually I calmed down and just do what I was suppose to do,” Size said. “I was ready to be a sub and just sub in for like 10 or 15 minutes and come out I wasn’t really expecting that really.”
What she didn’t expect was being the named the week one starter against Lamar beating out other players who have been on the team prior.
And she has been a starter since …
“I wasn’t expecting that, because they had other girls that were already on the team and my mindset was just to go along with whatever the schedule is and whatever coach has in mind,” Size said.
Fast tracking to the Lady Jaguars’ loss to the Delta Devilettes, Size was given a break from the last two games but when asked to step up she was able to look into the eyes of Prather and said, ‘I’m going to do my job coach’, and she did.
Playing for 60 minutes in a position that she had little experience in.
“She made a huge contribution which was staying in the game for as long she did, that’s a walk on sophomore taking a seniors spot and just did a great job again,” said Prather.