09-19-2018, 09:08 AM
Davidson will miss World Cup qualifying (and the rest of the NCAA season, of course), but she should be back healthy for the World Cup itself and the friendlies leading up to it. A bummer for her that she might lose her USWNT starting spot because of this, if only because it's difficult to come back from a serious injury and immediately jump into playing 90 minutes for the national team.
We can expect her back for next season at Stanford, of course, but that is her academic senior year, and I don't think we can reasonably expect to see her in a Stanford jersey after that, redshirt this year or not. She'll have Olympic qualifying in February 2020 (and presumably a spate of friendlies leading up to it), and she'll have the Olympics that summer. If she wants to still be Jill Ellis's first-choice center back next to Becky Sauerbrunn, then the more competition the better--and the NWSL season starts in April. She'll undoubtedly be one of the top few players taken (should really be the #1 player off the board given her national team credentials, but some team might be in desperate need for a striker, who knows). Most NWSL players make a pittance, but the USWNT players can make some decent money when they play in the league (under the new CBA, she'd be in line to make north of $200,000 once she goes pro, not including bonuses for national team successes). To expect her to forego that kind of money (and the potential Olympic bonus on top of that, even if she wins) so she can come back for a 5th year in fall 2020 when she already has a NCAA title under her belt just isn't realistic.
If I'm in her shoes, I take the fact that I won't have practice obligations this fall as an opportunity to add a class and try and get my credits up so I could graduate after fall quarter next year, not have to worry about school during Olympic qualifying, and then jump right into the NWSL season and the pre-Olympic national team friendlies. (Or just stop out and come back for fall quarter 2020 and 2021 if her academic schedule would be too unmanageable to try and graduate early. Whatever works for her!)
We can expect her back for next season at Stanford, of course, but that is her academic senior year, and I don't think we can reasonably expect to see her in a Stanford jersey after that, redshirt this year or not. She'll have Olympic qualifying in February 2020 (and presumably a spate of friendlies leading up to it), and she'll have the Olympics that summer. If she wants to still be Jill Ellis's first-choice center back next to Becky Sauerbrunn, then the more competition the better--and the NWSL season starts in April. She'll undoubtedly be one of the top few players taken (should really be the #1 player off the board given her national team credentials, but some team might be in desperate need for a striker, who knows). Most NWSL players make a pittance, but the USWNT players can make some decent money when they play in the league (under the new CBA, she'd be in line to make north of $200,000 once she goes pro, not including bonuses for national team successes). To expect her to forego that kind of money (and the potential Olympic bonus on top of that, even if she wins) so she can come back for a 5th year in fall 2020 when she already has a NCAA title under her belt just isn't realistic.
If I'm in her shoes, I take the fact that I won't have practice obligations this fall as an opportunity to add a class and try and get my credits up so I could graduate after fall quarter next year, not have to worry about school during Olympic qualifying, and then jump right into the NWSL season and the pre-Olympic national team friendlies. (Or just stop out and come back for fall quarter 2020 and 2021 if her academic schedule would be too unmanageable to try and graduate early. Whatever works for her!)