Call her a ‘Gen Y’ athlete

Adam Candee

Thursday, Feb. 13, 2003 | 9:23 a.m.

Wrap your mind around the following:

Lyndsay Gensler owns 11 varsity letters in four sports at Bonanza. Not one of them is in soccer. This fall, Gensler is the favorite to start at goalkeeper for the Saint Louis University soccer team.

It reads more like a logic test than a statement of fact, but every word of it is true.

While most Valley athletes chasing soccer scholarships spent their winters on the pitch, Gensler spent hers starring on the hardwood as a basketball player. Perhaps best known for her hoops exploits, and unknown to most as a soccer player, Gensler stunned many last week by signing a national letter of intent with Saint Louis to play soccer.

Why, the question lingers, would Gensler choose the sport she has played only at the club level for the past four years? To know the answer is to know the somehow simultaneously fiery and laid back personality of the young woman.

"To be quite honest, soccer's only three months out of the year, but in basketball, they basically own you," Gensler said.

Welcome to this Generation Y, with the 17-year-old Gensler as your tour guide. Around this new place, the shooting guard can become the keeper, and everything gets at least one try. In Gen-Y, the opportunity to have a balance that goes beyond sports and allows for a stream-of-consciousness life is imperative, and that became a major factor in Gensler's decision.

"I'm a really laid back person," Gensler said.

Eminem? Cool. Linkin Park? Sure. Dixie Chicks? Fine. As she chats on her cell phone in the car Wednesday, Matchbox 20 plays in the background. Actually, just spin the radio dial and really, it will all be good.

That carefree sense applies to Gensler's sports palette as well. Basketball? Great. Soccer? Absolutely. Volleyball? Super. Softball? Sweet. She has played them all, and played them all well.

Of course, the happy-go-lucky athlete of yesteryear does not mix well with many of today's high school coaches, as Gensler quickly learned while growing up.

"Everything works for each other. Every sport builds on the next," Gensler said. "So many of my coaches have pulled me aside and given me the talk about needing to concentrate on one sport. I like doing it all. It keeps me competitive."

But like it or not, the time for choices arrived. Because basketball and soccer are both winter sports, Gensler could not play both at Bonanza. A sour experience in club soccer before her freshman year swayed Gensler to pick basketball, which "became more and more fun" through the years.

Yet soccer, a sport she took up at age 4, remained for Gensler. She continued that endeavor, finding a new club soccer team that featured a handful of elite players plucked from other local club squads.

The more time she spent as a keeper, the more Gensler realized that her blithe nature meshed well into the esoteric soccer culture.

"Soccer girls are really different from basketball girls," Gensler said.

If Gensler's choice appears unusual, then that of Saint Louis head coach Tim Champion is a true leap of faith. The coach is attempting to replace a departed second-team All-American keeper with a freshman who never stopped a shot in high school play.

"It's unusual to sign a player who didn't play your sport in high school, but her athleticism and experience on the club level are more than enough to overcome that," Champion said.

Champion first noticed Gensler at a regional tournament about a year ago, when her unusual combination of size and athleticism caught the coach's eye. Just how good could a 6-1 keeper with soft hands and great feet become?

"She really has the potential to play at the national level," Champion said.

Undaunted by her lack of high school playing experience, Champion pursued Gensler to come to Saint Louis and compete for the starting job in her freshman year. The coach feels that goalkeepers are a different breed of player that do not necessarily need the same pedigree that position players do.

"With goalkeepers, you're better off going with athleticism," Champion said.

Gensler's choice ultimately came down to a soccer scholarship at Saint Louis or a basketball offer at Bucknell. Along with the schedule, the opportunity to step right in and play immediately appealed to Gensler.

"Saint Louis was a can't-go-wrong situation," Gensler said.

In Gensler's open-arms world, that situation would not be hard to find.

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