Erica Stein was a goalkeeper for Emory University's Women's Soccer program from 2009-2012. She was part of a program that transitioned from one of its worst seasons her freshman year to playing in the national championship in her senior season. She shared time in goal with another player in her year. She discusses how she turned this unexpected dynamic into one of the strongest relationships, and how teamwork and joy in movement have transcended college athletics to shape her life.
pD: Talk to me a bit about your background in sports.
ES: I have played sports almost my entire life. I started playing soccer when I was four years old, started playing goalkeeper when I was six. I had a few different options to try out a few different sports growing up, I'd go to a basketball camp or a gymnastics camp, and every time, I was like "No, I just want to focus on soccer." I played on the same travel team from when I was nine years old from 1999 to when I graduated high school in 2009. It is quite amazing to have stayed on the same (Braddock Road) team for ten years. It's another part of my life I don't think about that frequently, but it was such a wonderful experience, and luckily, we had a great coach and a great team.
I was able to have the opportunity to play at college and chose to play soccer for Emory University. When I was deciding between schools, I didn't pick Emory necessarily because I was going to be able to play soccer, but I realized how important that sport was to my life, and how sad I would have been without it... and I was also very appreciative of the balance that playing a Division III sport would afford in that academics is just as important as athletics. I really liked the coach and the team, and overall it was a really great experience. While it was challenging and a lot of work and time to balance with school, I wouldn't change any of it.
The highlight of my career my last game my Senior Year: we won our way through the NCAA tournament to eventually play in the national championship for Division III. While did not win, but it was the coolest experience to have everything culminate in that moment and at that level.
After that season and when graduated, I may have experienced one of my biggest challenges: you don't really realize how much of your identity is your athletic identity. I had just taken a sports psychology class, so I had that language to at least think about it and understand that loss. It was obviously a big change from playing five or six days a week, being with a coach, being really disciplined, and even during summers you have your workouts, to fully being on your own and also working full time for the first time. So all of these changes, I pretty much sat around for six months not knowing what to do with myself.
I joined a couple of casual leagues, and then I got into weightlifting. It was something I thought I was OK at in college when we would do our strength training sesions, so eventually in February 2014 I decided to try CrossFit. Obviously, it's known for being a cultlike and addictive sport, and it was exactly what I needed in terms of coaching and environment, with the mix of HIIT work and weights, and things like that. I wish I could say I'm a super self-motivated person; I think I am in some ways, but when you're used to having that holistic environment around you in terms of sports and athletics, you don't realize how motivating that is. When that's removed, where are you getting your motivation from? It needs to start coming intrinsically. Being in an environment like that, and be around people who are working towards the same thing and having fun, that was a great inroads to community. I was doing CrossFit until January 2020, when I developed a nagging injury and decided to take a break. But between that and weightlifting, that's been my biggest post-college athletic transition.
pD: You touched on some of the motivation and community that you found in CrossFit, replicating what was really helpful in college sports. What are some habits you developed through your time in sports?
ES: The concept of teamwork, which sounds really cliche, but is really nuanced in the way it manifests in my learning and experience, and now translating to real life. It's a few things: having people around you while you're working towards a common goal, so how can you come together and work towards achieving something that you collectively set as a team. Another part is learning how to manage and work with different personality types and different backgrounds.
Rally people together around one goal
Soccer and CrossFit both have team competitions, working together towards a common goal, and all the steps to achieve that, but also how you work with one another, individuals brought together on one team. The other part, especially being a goalkeeper, for me, it's: how do you then empower and lead others and command your presence in a way that people trust you and also trust teammates. I'm not the most vocal leader, but something I've learned is rallying people together around one goal and knowing what is going to motivate other people and how you can communicate amongst all your teammates to reach for that and do what you need to do. While the phrase teamwork is broad, it's pretty nuanced in the way it translates into real world scenarios after college.
pD: What stories, either from CrossFit or your soccer experience, shows off some of these teamwork habits that you are talking about?
ES: My freshman year at Emory was actually one of the worst seasons that the team had had in the history of Emory soccer. We went 8-5-5, which is not great with a lot of ties, and I think it was humbling for everyone. I think we took a lot of our skill and what we brought to the table for granted, and a lot of this, I was watching it unfold as a freshman until the coach started playing me the last six games of the season.
So that's how I got my inroads to start getting playing time. I think after that, there was just a period of reflection for the entire team around knowing that we're better than this, and we can be better if we actually communicate better with one another and translate that onto the field. I think it was that kick in the butt as a whole team to realize that we can be better if we put our minds to it and really focus in on what we're capable of achieving. The year after that, we went to the Elite Eight for the first time in school history, we set a few records; the year after that, we went to the Sweet Sixteen, and my senior year, we went to the National Championship. It was this collective adverse experience in having a really poor season when our potential was so much greater, and that being the wake-up call that we can work towards something better than we just did.
On a more granular level, I split time in goal; I would play the first half, and then my best friend from college, Kaele, would play the second half.
It's funny, neither of us knew there was going to be another goalkeeper in our class. One of the seniors called to check in before preseason, and one of them said "Aren't you so excited you're going to have a buddy, another goalkeeper in your class?" and I didn't know that. It was a shock, and it was a position where you're competing for time.
It was very unconventional in college sports: we were both in the same class, lived in the same dorm, and there was this potential to have a really negative relationship and rivalry. It actually ended up being the best environment because we were so motivating to one another. We have different strengths and weaknesses in our playing, but they balanced out in a way that it made sense for both of us to be in goal.
We were so motivating to one another
And we were completely OK with that, even going from freshman year when I earned my playing time to sophomore year when our coach was trying to figure out what to do with us, it just turned into me starting and Kaele would play second half. It was something where it could have been a really negative, rivalry-based relationship, like if you have a peer in a work environment, or you're competing for a certain spot in something, trying to prove yourself - even if it's working towards the same goal.
But for me, it turned into such a positive and special experience to have someone with me every step of the way, and she is still one of my best friends to this day. On a very peer to peer, teamwork level, I learned how to transform a relationship that could be really competitive into something that is really positive, and how you can push one another. I am so thankful for that now.
pD: You were talking about how some of these teamwork aspects translate from the playing field over to work and life in general. How have you seen that for yourself, where some of the things you've learned, teamwork-wise in sports, were useful or a part of your life after sports?
ES: It's hard to think of a job where you wouldn't be working with other people. I would say the majority of jobs, we're community-centric people, and most any role, no matter how big your team or organization is, you're going to be working with other people. And I think that when I was working at agencies, you're often working with a team of four to five people, but then you're also managing accounts for clients, so what I touched on in terms of working with people who have different personality types or expectations, you're trying to achieve one goal. I think accepting that was very fluid from college sports to real world, or any sports for that matter.
Knowing that people might be coming from different perspectives or personalities, or strengths and weaknesses, how do you read everything that's happening in a room and channel that in a way that's most productive for everyone? You might have someone who's really motivated by results or the end goal and things like that, or you might have someone else who's really empowered when their team is doing well and when everyone's skill is really connected with one another.
I don't manage people, but I manage projects and teams; if you're able to understand people's strengths and motivations, you can change the channel to unlock that and create the most potential for your team in the work that you're doing. If you are saying the same sentence to five different people, chances are it won't resonate the same way than if you change a word or two or your tone or things like that.
Know your audience, and what will be most motivating
It's the same way in sports, you have to know your audience, and know what will be most motivating to them. I think a big difference, especially since moving internationally, is that you're working with people from all over the world - which means it's not just personality types and working styles but also cultural nuances when working with colleagues who are Hong Kongers, Chinese, Singaporean, British, Australian, Indian, French, and so much more. As someone who comes from a psychology and sociology background, it's always been fascinating to understand and unlock how all of those pieces work together to understanding other people's point of view and their communication styles.
pD: Final question: what was one major challenge you've faced, and how did you face and approach it?
ES: I tore my Achilles on March 21, 2018. I was rebounding box jumps at CrossFit, so not an uncommon way to do it, unfortunately. I literally said before the workout to my coach, "Taylor, don't let me be stupid. I am going to be good at this one, but don't let me rebound." And needless to say - I didn't listen to my own advice. On the 57th box jump out of 60 in a very short workout, I heard a pop and I thought someone threw a barbell at the back of my leg, and I turned around and thought "Who did that?"
A split second later I realized exactly what happen and the pain began to set in. They called an ambulance and now I get to say that the first time I ever went to the doctor in Hong Kong was the emergency room, which was really scary. At first, it was misdiagnosed it was a muscle tear, and I felt some relief even though I had an inclination of what the injury actually was as had heard about it happening in that way to other athletes. I spent the whole week in a false sense of security that it was just a muscle tear, but then I got a second opinion a week later, and that was probably one of the hardest days I've had in Hong Kong.
Within five minutes, the doctor said they needed to get an MRI, but yeah, my Achilles was torn. As many times as I tell myself that I'm not scared, that I'm independent, that I can handle things on my own, it was a day where I felt really scared and really alone even though I had friends and a support network here. Essentially, I had to decide that day if I wanted to go into surgery the next day. I booked into surgery and luckily my mom flew over to be with me, and I also coincidentally had a friend who was visiting around Easter holidays, who was my physical therapist from home. My first week I was injured I had them both with me.
That happened March 2018 and I was in a cast for two weeks and in a boot for six weeks after that. It wasn't until after May that I got out of my boot and started learning to walk again. So I never had an injury as bad as that. I feel so lucky that I made it through college sports without a serious injury, let alone in a foreign country that I just moved to six months beforehand, and in a time and job that was overwhelming and stressful.
The environment was pretty tough, and it just layered on top of the injury. I had to start from ground zero to learn how to walk again, which I think it really changed my perspective in terms of goal setting which was learning to take everything one day, one movement, or one step at a time - literally. I would feel overwhelmed when I thought about the end goal as running, all the steps in between that would have to happen to get to that again, let alone running in a soccer environment, which involves cutting and dealing with other people.
Sometimes you're not fully appreciative of your body and all that you use it for, and also its resilience until something has happened. It was really hard having to regain the physical strength in my calf and get over the psychological fear of jumping again, and jumping the way that I hurt myself - but at least my upper body strength was amazing since I was on crutches for two months.
I want to push my body in a way that brings joy
Once the basic movements are down, I began adding in other activities that I wanted to get back to. It also changed my perspective on CrossFit a lot; I was really into it previously and this was a really unfortunate accident. For me, I realized I want to be pushing my body in a way that brings a lot of joy, not because I'm being motivated by this timer or other people in a class. It made me re-evaluate what movement meant to me, in a way that's really positive.
Small accomplishments continue to mean so much to me. I've been doing some hiking lately, and dancing, basic shuffling moves which I can't believe I'm doing at some points in time. I am always humbled and proud when I realize I couldn't walk literally two years ago, and then I can unlock a new way to push and move my body. It's been crazy, and periods of my life that are marked by adversity have always been channeled into something really positive. I think that in particular has been something that's been really formative my first two years living internationally.
In the realm of mental health, I studied psychology and sociology, and I've always been interested in mental health in general. In Hong Kong, I went through a really bad burnout period, and a few periods of episodic depression and really bad anxiety. And it was very much work-related; I was working really long hours, and I had difficulty in my work environment. I would raise a flag saying something's not right, asking for help, and it was all very normalized, where I was told it's just agency life, or it's just Hong Kong, or it was expected of me.
Meanwhile, I felt like I just turned into zombie mode and was stressed all the time. It was through this experience I also realized how big of a role employers and companies have for the health of their people. In my mind, public health used to mean big campaigns and how companies communicate about taking care of your nutrition and things like that. But through my own experience of being really unhappy, I realized that businesses are key in supporting their people. As soon as I got through the really traumatic physical recovery of my Achilles, I also began to pay more attention to the broader factors influencing my mental health - and eventually hit a breaking point where something needed to change.
The team's not going to get anything done if their people aren't taken care of
At this time, I also had an opportunity in that role to launch our internal company mental health initiative to support my colleagues, which felt very serendipitous. It was my first introduction to employee well-being, and having my own experience, recognizing the importance of this, seeing how much power companies have to do the right thing and take care of their people, I realized that organizations are made up of people at the end of the day; the team's not going to get anything done if their people aren't taken care of.
I got the support that I needed by working with a coach, spent six months networking like crazy, got connected with a community of people in Hong Kong who are trying to make that impact on people's mental health and well-being in the workplace. Everyone is so passionate about it because of their own personal experience, and are driven to create change.
That eventually led me to my current job. And now with one of my teams, we help companies build their well-being strategies and programs across physical, emotional, social, and financial wellbeing. It's come full circle in a way, channeling my public health interest that grew from a love of sport and athletics and how you take care of yourself, through my own experience of mental health in the workplace, to now trying to support others in their journey and recognizing how important it is.
It's interesting because my professional journey in the health space started with the things that I learned playing sports, forged and reinforced through my own experience related to health and mental health in the workplace that led me to where I am today. I don't think everyone knows what their end goal is going to be, and a lot of it is shaped by our experience along the way. I have already seen a lot of change happen, so I hope to continue making an impact here and for others.
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