Lela Stark '22 Recruiting Profile

I am a hardworking student athlete who aspires to play for Team Canada and for a professional women’s team when I am older. I believe each and everyday is an opportunity to be a better version of myself than the day before. One of my goals is to play for a Division 1 soccer team and lead them to a gold medal at a NCAA Championship. I see myself at a school that challenges me both athletically and academically. I want to compete with athletes who are as driven, hard working, focused and have as much passion for the game as I do. I look forward to developing long lasting experiences and relationships. 

When I was 10 years old, I started playing house league soccer. I didn’t realize how much I loved soccer until two years after when I joined a rep team that had a spot open. When I was 12, I made the team for the year up as there were not enough girls interested to form a team. I started to learn how to pass, but didn’t have enough strength to properly shoot. I lacked technical ability to do moves of any kind but still believed in myself. No matter how terrible I was at something, I didn’t care because my love for the sport was so strong. I never saw soccer as something to put all my focus into, until one tournament where I played with my age group and helped them place as silver medalists. I tried out the next year for that team and didn’t make it. This helped ignite a fire in me that led me to want to turn my weaknesses into my strengths. One of these weaknesses in particular was shooting with my left foot. So, every day that summer I would go down the street to our neighbourhood park and spend hours working on my left foot because I could never shoot strongly with my right. This process of failing and succeeding helped me train both feet to be equally powerful. I developed a mentality that no matter where I was in my soccer journey I was going to train everyday and value the small improvements. That year I played on a rep team in Kitchener where I met a coach who believed in me and helped me develop drills for the skills I needed to work on. I trained all the time. A year later I made OPDL. When I was 15, I made the team I am currently on. My juggle record went from 158 to 6335 in less than three years. This was because I held myself accountable and trained hard. The Covid-19 lockdown helped me refocus on the things that had value to me. Each day I would go out before the streetlights would come on to improve my game and come home after dark. Throughout the years I have earned the honour to be captain, where I have continued to uplift and motivate my teammates. 

Creativity is one of my biggest assets I bring to the pitch which helps me continue to grow and learn. I enjoy freestyle and long distance running which keeps me fit. I most recently ran a half marathon one night after school with a time of 1:34:49 and I look forward to improving my time. School and family are also a very high priority for me. I set goals for myself in school and continue to reach them by carefully planning my days and by balancing all the important things in my life. I have a 4.00/ 4.0 GPA with an average that keeps improving. My family means the world to me, they support me in my goals, dreams and are there during my biggest challenges. They help me stay strong and are my rock when I need advice. A big dream of mine is to continue to take my love of the game across the world and share it with others. I would love to be a strong, empowering, female leader that young athletes look up to across the globe. Traveling while playing soccer would be amazing because it is one language that everyone can speak and it connects the world in the most wonderful way.