Editor’s note: This Q&A with Emily Menges was taken from the Thorns FC match-day program. For each home match, one Thorns FC player is featured in a Q&A. See who the next featured player is as Thorns FC play host to the Chicago Red Stars on Friday, July 4, at 11 a.m. at Providence Park.
You recently graduated from Georgetown University. How was graduation?
“It was a lot of fun. Both my parents, my little brother, my grandma came down, so it was nice. Georgetown has this thing where all seniors go to the monuments. We have a senior ball, then we go to the monuments as a senior class and it’s kind of a wrapping up of college. However any of the seniors can get there, you get there. We all took a cab and everyone meets at the Lincoln Memorial. That was definitely the highlight. Then, we had graduation the next morning.”
You got your degree in psychology. If you hadn’t been drafted and soccer wasn’t an option, what do you think you’d be doing?
“For psychology, you can’t really do anything unless you get some sort of Master’s or Ph.D. So, I will probably, at some point, get some kind of Master’s degree because I do want to go into psychology at some point. But I couldn’t imagine having to do that now, so I’m glad that I’m playing soccer at least for the gap years. If I hadn’t been drafted here, I probably would have gone to play abroad. I knew I wasn’t going to try and go right to grad school.”
What are you most looking forward to you now that you’re in Portland full-time?
“I’ve been to Saturday Market. I’m really excited to go without my Dad, because he doesn’t like shopping. So, we kind of just walked through and looked at all the weird things people make, but now I’m excited to be here on a Saturday and go out to the Oregon coast. I went once, but it was a terrible day. I’m excited to go on a nice day in the summer.”
Rumor has it, that you were a bit of a track star in high school. Was there something in particular that pushed you towards soccer over track? What events did you run?
“I hated track. A lot. I ran track my freshman year of college and was absolutely miserable. I had to take the whole winter and spring off of soccer, so I didn’t touch a soccer ball the entire second semester of my freshman year. I was just miserable. I love being in shape. I don’t enjoy running, but I like having that feeling that I’m in shape. I just wasn’t into the races. Eventually, it was what I wanted to do [soccer] over what I was good at. I could have been way better at track, but without the will to want to run a race, I was never going to be good. I ran the 400, the 800 and, if my coach was feeling particularly cruel, the mile.”
