Still Kicking

The “Queen of Caps,” they call her.

The “Iron Horse,” they call her.

The Cal Ripken of women’s soccer, they call her.

But her mother doesn’t put much stock in such nicknames. She has known from the beginning what it would be like. The very beginning.

“She was a breech birth,” her mother said. “She came out kicking.”

Kristine Marie Lilly, better known to her friends and U.S. teammates as Lil, has been kicking ever since. She kicked her way to four NCAA titles at the University of North Carolina, to a world championship in China in 1991 and to an Olympic gold medal in ’96.

And last year, in Kobe, Japan, she kicked her way to a world record by playing in her 152nd national team game. No player in the 127-year history of international soccer, man or woman, has played in that many.

It was a jubilant scene in the U.S. locker room in Kobe that afternoon as the U.S. players gave her a standing ovation, bowing and cheering and clowning as only a tight-knit team can do.

“That meant a lot to me,” Lilly said.

“I felt proud to be a part of it, and a bit in awe,” U.S. Coach Tony DiCicco told ESPN this spring when the network filmed a profile of the U.S. midfielder. “Here’s this young lady, still in her prime, doing something no one has ever done before.”

Said forward Mia Hamm: “She’s such an unbelievable leader for us. If you ever want a picture of work rate and heart, just watch Kristine Lilly play.”

Going into the third FIFA Women’s World Cup, which begins Saturday at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., with the U.S. playing Denmark, Lilly has earned 180 caps--the term coming from a tradition begun by England in 1872 when it awarded actual caps to players chosen to represent their country.

Next spring, Lilly will surpass 200.

“Can you conceive anyone beating that number of caps when she does retire?” asks Anson Dorrance, Lilly’s former coach with the Tar Heels and the national team.

Dorrance, who guided the U.S. to the first world championship by building the team largely around his North Carolina players, created a dynasty in Chapel Hill, and Lilly and Hamm were an integral part of that.

“The greatest thing about Kristine Lilly--and it’s a quality that she’s exhibited from the first day any of us saw her--is that she is absolutely relentless,” Dorrance said. “That’s a great description of the way she plays.

“She actually gets better as the environments get worse. She elevates her game according to what she’s competing against. As a result, everyone has huge praise for her. She’s one of the most universally praised women on the U.S. team.”

In addition to leading the world in appearances, Lilly’s 74 goals for the U.S. rank her sixth in the world on the all-time goal-scoring list, led by Hamm’s 109 goals.

Dorrance talks about the 27-year-old Lilly’s “amazing consistency” and how “her whole career has been a never-ending ascension.” He struggles to find enough superlatives about her game.

“Any of us who have had the fortune of watching her play or coaching her,” he said, “have just been thrilled with all the different qualities she brings to the pitch.”

DiCicco, who took over the national team in 1994, is equally effusive.

“There’s no replacement for Kristine,” he said. “To replace Kristine would be very difficult. She’s very versatile. She can play a lot of places and she just makes the game happen wherever she is.”

A Resilient Figure

Outside Wilton, Conn., there is a sign that the city fathers (and possibly mothers) erected after the Atlanta Olympics. It reads: “Welcome to Wilton, home of Kristine Lilly, 1996 Olympic gold medalist.”

Although she was born in New York City, Lilly calls Wilton home. It is where she runs her Kristine Lilly Soccer Academy each summer, giving the children something she did not have as a youngster--a women’s soccer role model to look up to and emulate.

Girls’ soccer was in its infancy when Lilly was a child, there weren’t many teams and there wasn’t much competition. She solved the problem her own way.

“I grew up in Wilton playing from second grade to eighth grade on a boys’ team,” she said. “So I had about 18 brothers. I enjoyed playing with the guys and I was able to, so I was like, ‘Well, why not?’ It was one of the greatest times of my life.”

That experience, plus banging the ball around with her older brother and his friends in the basement of their home, toughened her from an early age. The boys ignored the bumps and bruises and so did she.

She had natural talent and, less than two weeks after her 16th birthday, she made her national-team debut, in a 2-0 victory over China in Tianjin, China, in a game that also marked the debuts of Hamm, who was only 15, Joy Fawcett and Linda Hamilton, all of them future world champions.

At 5 feet 4 and 125 pounds, Lilly is not physically imposing, but she has a determination and a will to win that still confounds Dorrance.

“My first indication of her as a freshman at UNC was about her resilience,” he said. “She took a knock in one of our preseason practices and the trainer came up to me and said, ‘Anson, I think she’s going to be out for three weeks.’ And I’m thinking, ‘What a nightmare. We’ve got this talented player here and now she’s out for the first part of our season.’ She was back two days later. The trainer said, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.’

“And then we go over to China in ’91 and she and Carla [Overbeck] collide in the first game and she has this severe hip pointer and the trainer comes up to me and says the same thing, ‘Anson, I think she’s done for the Cup.’ I said, ‘You’re kidding me.’ Then all of a sudden, by the next game, she was back in it again.

“So she has a resilience that is absolutely extraordinary. I think that’s one of the factors that has contributed to her cap total. Even if she gets whacked, her body figures out a way to rehabilitate and get her back on the field.

“Obviously, she has a huge pain threshold, but there’s something else magical going on with Kristine Lilly.”

The Total Package

Since its first game in 1985, the United States women’s national team has played 206 matches. That’s not a surprising statistic, but this one is:

Kristine Lilly has played in 180, or 87%, of them.

So ever-present has she been that it is difficult for her teammates to conceive of her not being in the starting lineup.

“She’s ‘Old Faithful,’ ” forward Tiffeny Milbrett said. “She’s been around forever. You know what you’re getting from her. You’ll get nothing but 100% from her every day. She’s really reliable. Really consistent.”

Adds co-captain Overbeck: “Lil is the total package. Her work ethic. The way she leads by example. Just being a good person. Everyone wants to be like Kristine. On the field, she’s probably the hardest-working person that we have.”

And from Hamm: “Kristine is a personality player for us no matter where she plays.”

Lilly and Hamm were one of the most feared duos in collegiate soccer at North Carolina, and Dorrance still dreams fondly about those days.

“The three most enjoyable seasons of my life as a college coach,” he said, “were when the other teams had to figure out who to put their best defender on, Mia Hamm or Kristine Lilly, because we had them teamed up front.

“That was an unbelievable forward line. Those two complemented each other in ways that were just exciting. They knew where each other was, they had a tremendous mobility, each one could beat defenses on her own, they looked for each other, they found each other.”

For the U.S., Lilly plays an attacking midfield role, behind the forward line of Hamm, Milbrett and Cindy Parlow. When the occasion calls for it, she and Parlow switch places, creating even more confusion among opposing defenses.

But as active as Lilly is on the field, she is the opposite once the final whistle sounds.

“Kristine’s a little quiet,” Milbrett said. “The wonderful thing, or the weird thing, possibly, about athletics is that just because you kick butt on the field and you’re really crazy doesn’t mean that’s how you are as an individual off the field.

“And I think Lil’s that way. She’s just shy and reserved and a little quiet. She likes to read a lot. Every trip I see her with a new book. She really enjoys her friends and family. She has a dog now [a golden retriever named Molson] that she takes very seriously.”

Overbeck, Julie Foudy and Lilly were roommates during the U.S. team’s six-month residency camp in Florida, and Overbeck agreed that Lilly can appear reserved.

“You get her going and she’ll be kind of crazy, but to outsiders she’s kind of quiet,” she said. “She’s just a great person. One of my best friends on this team.”

Why, almost a dozen years since her debut, does Lilly keep going?

“Competing,” she said. “I love to play at this level, and I love the game.”

For now, reclaiming the World Cup is her focus. After that, it will be the Olympic Games in Australia next year. And after that?

“I don’t know,” she said. “Let’s make it through 1999 and 2000 first.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Women’s World Cup

GAME 1

U.S. vs. Denmark, Saturday, noon, Channel 7, Giants Stadium.

CHAMPIONSHIP GAME

Saturday, July 10, 1 p.m., Channel 7, Rose Bowl.

****

Tip of the Cap

Kristine Lilly has 180 caps, which represents a playing appearance for the U.S. national team. A look at the all-time caps leaders:

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Player Position Caps Kristine Lilly Midfielder 180 Mia Hamm Forward 173 Julie Foudy Midfielder 155 Carla Overbeck Defender 144 Joy Fawcett Defender 142 Michelle Akers Midfielder 141 Tisha Venturini Midfielder 122 Tiffeny Milbrett Forward 118 Carin Jennings Gabarra Forward 117* Brandi Chastain Defender 95 Briana Scurry Keeper 90 Shannon MacMillan Forward 78 Tiffany Roberts Midfielder 72 Linda Hamilton Defender 71*

*--*

* -- retired