Women's Center adviser kicks life off in new direction

Struby Struble leaves Missouri with dreams of playing professionally.

By Belinda Kocen

Published Feb. 20, 2009

Women's Center Adviser Struby Struble will be leaving her position in order to pursue a career in soccer in San Francisco. Struble made the San Francisco Nighthawks semi-professional soccer team.

Struble played soccer at a small private college in San Diego, but the athletic department cut the program her sophomore year.

"I had to choose if I wanted to focus on academics or soccer at that point," Struble said.

She chose MU after visiting a friend on campus and noticing everyone's school spirit, as well as the variety of classes and resources offered. She decided not to try out for the Women's United Soccer Association and instead go to MU for school.

"I was able to establish my identity as a feminist and activist here," Struble said. "It also made the coming-out process easier since I could re-establish my identity here as well as have so much support from the LGBTQ and ally community."

Now that she figured her life out off the field Struble said she can go back to pursuing her original life passion of playing soccer.

"Being openly lesbian will not matter on the San Francisco team. That is one reason I picked them," Struble said. "Although I don't think that it would have mattered much on any of the other teams."

Struble said she heard rumors last March that a women's professional league would be starting up again so she started Google searching for semi-professional leagues and teams. She sent her information to multiple teams and got invited to try-out in Minneapolis, San Francisco and Fort Collins, Colorado.

Struble made it onto the Nighthawks and will be playing by the third game of the season, which starts March 7. Once playing with the team she hopes to be seen by coaches from the professional league.

Struble leaving will create more work for the people who remain on staff at the Women's Center.

"The workload is something we are going to have to be flexible about and delegate," graduate student Katie Blair said.

Struby will be missed since she put in many years of hard work and has helped the campus a lot, Blair said.

"I am excited for her because she has a life dream, and most life dreams are usually lofty, but she has decided what she wanted to do and did it," said Suzy Day, a Center for Social Justice staff member.

Although Blair and Day do now know if Struble's position will be filled, Day said she is looking forward to taking on new responsibilities that Struble normally does, such as the Vagina Monologues.

"I look to her for all of my questions since she used to hold my position here," Day said. "I am going to miss having her first hand experience as a resource."

Struble said the hardest thing for her would be leaving her friends and the community here because Missouri will always be her home.