As the Penn women's soccer team emerged from the locker room after a season-ending team meeting on Monday evening, the atmosphere was indicative of the exhausting year which had just passed, and anticipatory of the possibilities which next year will bring.
For one particular player, however, there was more to this day than just giving back equipment and heading off into winter.
Quakers senior defender and team co-captain Heather Issing still has a year of eligibility remaining after redshirting last season due to a fractured foot suffered during her sophomore season. It will require career-ending surgery at some point, and still causes her pain. But the Glen Head, N.Y., native is not ready to give up on the game she loves just yet.
"There's so many levels on which I have to analyze my decision and weigh the pros and cons," she said.
Considering how far she has come to get to this point, there are plenty of reasons to keep the ride going.
Issing was recruited in 1999 by then-Quakers coach Andy Nelson. But before she got to Rhodes Field, Nelson left to take over the reins at Stanford -- leaving her and 12 other players without what she called "the only person I would have known at Penn... your comfort zone in terms of joining a new team, a new school."
There was to be a silver lining from this, however.
"I think that the relationship and bond between those girls was that much stronger because we had to rely on each other for comfort and whatnot as freshmen," she said.
Perhaps none of Issing's relationships from soccer are more solid than the one she shares with fellow senior Vanessa Scotto, Penn's goalkeeper, who has been behind her -- literally -- almost every time the two have stepped out on the field.
"She's always been a very consistent and solid player," Scotto said. "And from the 13 [players] we started out with, we've grown to be very strong friends, sticking through these four years together."
While Issing has grown as a player, Darren Ambrose has grown as Penn's coach.
He came in at the same time as the Class of 2004, and has seen just as much of the Quakers' rapid move into the Ivy League's upper echelon as his seniors.
Ambrose believes that Issing has "helped bring a sense of stability" to the team.
"I've seen her mature as a person," he said. "She's been a leader and the girls look up to her, and I think she's helped us grow as a program."
That growth has included two 10-win seasons, an Ivy League championship in 2001 and, in the last game of this season, a long-elusive win over archrival Princeton.
Issing has many fond memories of her Quakers career.
"Sophomore year, you really couldn't get any sweeter than that," she said of the team's title run three seasons ago.
Yet despite the 2003 season not going as well as planned, she also considers it a career high point.
"This year I felt more comfortable with my leadership ability and my playing ability than I've ever felt in my life," she said.
But in 2001, Issing was not able to feel the full thrill of victory.
She fractured her foot that year, but kept playing on it instead of treating it right away. As a result, the foot became arthritic, forcing her to sit out her junior year. It will require a fusion surgery that, once it takes place, would end her chances of playing soccer again.
Until now, she has been able to postpone the operation -- and the season she spent off the field is now available to her in the form of another year of eligibility should she choose to use it.
"If I have the surgery, I should be like 95 percent pain-free," she said. "I may not be able to run comfortably again. I might have to pick up swimming or something, but soccer would pretty much be over for me if I had the surgery."
But like the situation she faced at the beginning of her Penn career, there is a silver lining this time around, too, as younger players who might otherwise have been on the bench last season found themselves thrown right into the fire of Ivy League competition.
"I think there's a really unique situation on the team with the fact that I was absent last year," she said. "Players like Robin Watson, Lauren Bome -- even though they were freshmen and sophomores -- were forced to take a leadership role."
Now, with time to both reflect on past glories and look to what the future holds, Issing will begin the process of deciding just where to go from here.
"When it comes down to it, there are a lot of academic, there are a lot of career decisions, monetary decisions," she said. "It's not as cut and dry as I would like."
Although in the end, it is not Ambrose's decision to make, he knows what Issing is going through.
"From a professional standpoint and a life standpoint, she wants to get on with her life," Ambrose said. "But this is the last time she'll probably play soccer at this level, in this kind of a structured environment, at this competitive level."
That level will include what Ambrose called "the toughest schedule Penn's ever had." And having Issing anchoring the Red and Blue's backline once again would only help as Penn makes its way towards national prominence in college soccer.
"I'd love to see her leave, maybe captaining an Ivy League Championship team -- not one that beats Princeton, but one that wins the league again," he said.
"It's a no-brainer for me -- I want to have her back."
