PORTLAND, Ore. – It took Erica Walsh Dambach, head coach of women's soccer at Penn State University, 22 minutes to decide that she had to recruit Mallory Weber.
“She was absolutely relentless,” Walsh Dambach remembers. “We had [been] told that she had a pretty significant work ethic but it went well beyond anything that we had seen in a player her age and that was absolutely the case in her four years in college too. She set a completely different standard for work ethic out on the field.”
Weber did not rank among the other highly-touted high school prospects that Walsh Dambach had recruited to Penn State, but in her four years the university, Weber scored 36 goals and tallied 29 assists. Despite such impressive numbers and despite helping lead her team to a NCAA Division I title in her senior season, Weber still fell into the second round of the 2016 NWSL College Draft, where she was ultimately selected by the Western New York Flash.
“I was excited to get drafted because not many people do,” Weber says.
But only two months after the draft, and only a few weeks after she first arrived in Rochester for preseason training, Weber was traded to Portland.
“I was there for a couple weeks and then I got a phone call and talked to my coach at [Western] New York and he was like, 'Well, this opportunity's open and they traded for you,' and [I] got on a plane that day [and] came to Portland.”
What Weber didn't know at the time was that Thorns FC head coach Mark Parsons had been tracking her since before the draft. Parsons had spoken with Walsh Dambach and the Penn State coach had told him that Weber was one of the top three most coachable players that she had ever worked with.
“I don't think I've ever had another [college] coach say something like that about a player,” Parsons says of that pre-draft conversation with Walsh Dambach.
Walsh Dambach's words stuck with Parsons enough that when he found out Weber was available via trade, he jumped at the chance to work with the Michigan native.
“The player who...[gives] you everything in every activity, that's the player that you have to grab and you have to hold onto and you keep at your club because they're going to be better than the player who's the same talent but who can't do that,” he says. “That's Mal.”
Since arriving in Portland at the end of March, Weber has done everything her coaches have asked of her. She's played up top in attack. She's played along the wing. In May, against Seattle Reign FC, Weber started at left back. Against the Western New York Flash in June, Weber came on at right back for an injured Meg Morris. Heading into the NWSL return this Saturday against Seattle Reign FC (2:00pm PT, WEBSTREAM), Weber has appeared in 11 games—five of them starts—in 2016.
Where most players would balk at such a switch – Weber has player nearly her entire soccer career as a forward – Weber begins every new assignment by asking herself a simple question: how can I be better?
“I [have a trait of] wanting to get better and never settling for, 'Oh, I made it to the college level,' or, 'Oh, OK, I got drafted,'” she says. “I think never really being happy and satisfied with where I'm at has allowed me to keep getting better, kind of almost like a perfectionist, and never being complacent has helped me.”
Weber herself says that the move has forced her to change the way that she thinks of her role on the field.
“[Before, I would get] the ball and think, 'Oh, I'm going to take this player on,' or, 'Oh, I'm going to run at her.' Whereas now I'm going to be: 'OK, I need to connect this pass so the other attacker can't run at me and go 1v1.' So holding myself back and being more simple rather than [being more] creative and going after it.”
Regardless of whether or not Weber makes a permanent switch to defense, her coach remains convinced that there will always be a spot on the field for a player as committed as Weber.
“A lot of players find it easy to have motivation to get into a good position,” Parsons says. “The special ones, once they're in a good position have the motivation to keep moving forward. You really want that job and then you get it. Ah! But the ones that really wanted it, they get it and then they go even harder and faster and [Weber is] doing it right now.”
