As a striker in high school, LSU goalie Robyn DesOrmeaux learned to play the game of soccer with her feet.
While traditionally the goalkeeper spot is occupied by a person with solid hands, DesOrmeaux, a junior from Carencro, La., counts on the feet she used to score goals, to now be a solid goalie.
“My strong point is not my hands,” DesOrmeaux said. “With my field experience, playing with my feet is more my strength than my hands.”
In her first full season as the No. 1 goalie last season, DesOrmeaux notched an 11-5-3 record. She also was third in the Southeastern Conference in goals against average of 0.86, good enough for a spot on the 2002 First Team All-Louisiana.
So far this season, she is 7-1-1 with three shutouts, compared to five from a year ago.
“I think Robyn is the type of goalkeeper that every school should get,” coach George Fotopoulos said. “Playing with her feet has allowed her to become [a good goalkeeper]. It’s always good to learn every position possible.”
After sitting out her true freshman year with a medical redshirt due to a knee injury suffered in a serious car accident, DesOrmeaux came back in 2001 and won significant playing time toward the end of the season.
“I came in with the mindset to be a backup,” DesOrmeaux said of her redshirt freshman year. “I was able to step in a few games. It was a great honor to do that.”
Said Fotopoulos of the situation, “Robyn was the future. It was time to give her an opportunity.”
A degenerative back condition often keeps DesOrmeaux from training with the team, Fotopoulos said. However, her knowledge of both the goalkeeping and striking positions gives her the ability to share crucial information with the team’s forwards.
“I talk many times with the strikers to tell them what goalkeepers are looking for,” DesOrmeaux said.
Junior forward Artie Brown, who played against DesOrmeaux in high school and with her on the Louisiana State Olympic Developmental Program team, said the conversations come in handy.
“Just being a striker and her being a goalkeeper – we help each other out. If I have a breakaway, she might give me clues about what a goalkeeper [is doing],” Brown said.
Fotopoulos said it was tough to get a goalkeeper to come to LSU for his first year at the helm of the Tigers in 2000. He said it was especially tough when the Tigers allowed six to seven goals a game the previous year.
“To convince top level recruits was difficult,” he said, noting assistant coach Ricky Zambrano deserves credit for DesOrmeaux’s continuing development. “There’s not a selling point there. [DesOrmeaux’s] got a lot of character. I was able to train goalkeepers [at the beginning of her career] and that gave her an idea about what I wanted in a goalkeeper.”
According to DesOrmeaux, it takes a special kind of person to be a goalie.
“All goalkeepers have to be a little crazy,” she said. “It’s a blast. I like the responsibility of being a hero or a zero. You have the option of keeping the team in the game or out of it single handedly.”