Senior midfielder Nathalie Wollmann was 5 years old when she first took up soccer, a time that her father fondly recalls.
“It was 1993. We were living in Houston, and Nat played on a boy’s team,” he said.
Her mother added, “She played with the boys because the girls weren’t as competitive as her. There was no wearing a dress, playing Barbies or jump rope—hockey and soccer, that’s it.”
Wollmann, now 21, has moved her soccer career from strength to strength, and she capped it this year by leading the Portland State women’s soccer team to a record-breaking 10-6-4 season.
Along the way, Wollmann has played 77 career matches at Portland State, with an incredible 75 consecutive starts. This year, her final on the squad, the Viks were crowned conference regular season champions.
“It was an awesome season and a lot of fun,” she said. “It’s a great way for the seniors to go out. I think we have left a stamp on the program.”
Before coming to the Park Blocks, Wollmann played club soccer at Calgary Celtic Soccer Club and at the provincial and national levels in Calgary, Canada. An ardent field hockey enthusiast, Nathalie was coaxed into pursuing soccer by her parents, who were concerned that she might hurt herself.
“I would have played hockey if my mom would have let me, but she didn’t want me to lose my teeth—so I played soccer. I would have much rather played hockey,” she said.
“She still loves hockey and is a huge fan,” her father said. “Dolly Enneking and Rachel Jarvis, who are her roommates at Portland State, have been great. When a hockey game is on television, they know where Nat is and have even tried to sit through and watch a couple of games with her.”
Wollmann, whose favorite player is German captain and Chelsea midfielder Michael Ballack, has been the mainstay of the Vikings midfield for the past four years. Interestingly though, this wasn’t the position she was used to playing before.
“I always played forward before I came here, and the big joke at home was that I couldn’t defend. When I told my coaches back in Calgary about my new assigned position, they thought it was a joke,” she said. “The coaches here kept telling me that I was really strong and good in the air, and those were some of the things I never used to use in my game before.”
After the fall of 2006, in her freshman year, Wollmann was named co-captain along with then freshman goalkeeper Cris Lewis by head coach at the time, Tim Bennett.
“As a freshman, it was a little intimidating to be named captain—but Cris and I made it work, I guess,” she said. “The coach said that he saw some leadership qualities that he wanted me to grow with. Cris and I used sit out on the field after practice, and we tried to make sure that the team’s morale was high.”
When asked to name a few highlights in her career, she said, “One of the games I will remember forever is the game against USC last year. To be tied 0-0 at halftime with the national champions felt awesome. Also, the winner I scored against Montana in my sophomore year is exciting because my dad and grandfather—who is a huge supporter—had driven down from Canada to see that game.”
During her four years at Portland State, Wollmann has played through challenging injuries. In her first year, her shin was cracked, but she had the team’s trainer to make her a special shin pad. She asked him not to tell the coach how bad it was because after a slow start, the team was finally having some success in conference, and she wanted to keep contributing, despite the pain.
“I have been lucky that I never had a very serious injury,” she said. “But you have to be mentally tough to get through it.”
Not to have her success confined to just the soccer field, Wollmann also excels in academics. She has been named in the all-academic team in each of the last four seasons and has a GPA of 3.895 in her undergraduate studies in public health.
“I think it’s a matter of putting in the effort—and about finding a balance and taking it seriously,” she said.
Wollmann, who said she will be volunteering at the winter Olympics in February, is also excited about the soccer team’s prospects in the coming season.
“Some of the girls that didn’t even get to play this year are going to put in a strong performance next year, and we are going to have a strong returning group. My moral support will always be with the team,” she said.