Most young athletes have experienced that moment where they no longer wanted to run, where the laziest alternative seems the best. For WSU redshirt junior goalkeeper Gurveen Clair, this moment came during her first select soccer tryout.

“I hated to run as a kid,” Clair said. “But, we had just finished this really grueling drill, and no goalkeepers had actually showed up for the tryout. They asked for volunteers to go in net, so I shot my hand up. I just would rather stand there than keep running.”

When Clair planted her feet in front of the net, she had no idea she was making the first step toward becoming a WSU women’s soccer player.

“One of the parents was going to work with the goalkeeper,” she said. “He saw something in me. I was like, 5-foot-2 in the seventh grade. I had that advantage, but he saw little things in me that made him think ‘I can work with that.’”

Clair admitted that her first soccer team finished with a record around 2-14, but she took a lot of positives away from the experience.

“I learned a lot during that year,” she said. “I owe a lot to him (Rick Mithrush). And after three years with him, I owe a lot to him and my head coach. They got me to where I am today.”

Clair said she does still wish she could give her younger self one nugget of information.

“As much as I hate running, we actually do everything the field players do,” she said. “It’s just as important for us to be able to hold our own and be fit. By no means is our workout any less excruciating than theirs.”

Clair has benefited from the hard work, dedication and time spent in net. She ranks first all-time at WSU with a .733 goals against average per game. Additionally, she is also just two wins and two shutouts away from being the WSU all-time statistical leader in each respective category.

Clair’s leadership in net plays an important role inside a strong WSU defense.

“People hate when I use this, but we’re almost the quarterback of the team,” she said. “Just like quarterbacks have to call the plays, they have to read the defense, in a similar sense we do that. We stand in the back and we have to adjust our defensive players or slow the tempo down. That’s all on us.”

However, Clair will let the WSU quarterbacks hold on to one thing: the playbook.

“We get a scouting report with a little bit of information,” Clair said. “We don’t really have playbooks, so they aren’t as relevant.”

Don’t be fooled though. If Clair had a playbook, chances are she would have no trouble diving into its contents.

“I’m an avid book reader,” she said. “It slows down during the school year, but once I start a book I can’t put it down until I’m done.”

Clair said she finished the Hunger Games series in just three days. She could spend the whole day reading books if time allowed.

In her home region, the Sunshine Coast, British Columbia, she said she was always encouraged to read.

“Reading helped with my schoolwork,” she said. “Because I loved to read, writing papers was so much easier for me. After I write a paper I go over it and reread it almost like a novel.”

Clair admitted that sometimes her critical thought process finds its way on to the soccer pitch. Criticizing herself has challeneged her in the past, but she works each day with her team to overcome it on and off the field.

“Sometimes even when I make the right choice, I feel like, ‘What if I would’ve done this?’” she said. “At the end of the day you have two seconds to make a decision, and you have to trust that.”