April 23, 2009

BERKELEY - CalBears.com recently spoke to Morgan Dyson, California's senior goalkeeper who was named one of the MPSF Players of the Week on Monday. The Chicago product was honored after making a career-high tying 16 saves in the Golden Bears' 13-12 overtime win over No. 18 Oregon on April 17 at Memorial Stadium. Dyson and the Bears will play Saint Mary's at 3:30 p.m. today, Thursday, April 23, in the first round of the MPSF Tournament at Stanford.

CalBears.com: Congratulations on being named co-MPSF player of the week. What was going through your mind when you found out?

Morgan Dyson: Thanks. Not much - my mom sent me an e-mail and told me I got it and I was like, "Oh, that's cool." I mean, there were many people from our team that also could've gotten it the same week.

Calbears.com: How about tying your career high of 16 saves?

MD: I was just happy to contribute to the win in a positive win. You know, maybe if I had a few more saves we wouldn't have had to go in to overtime. But it's okay -- it all worked out in the end.

CalBears.com: Has it hit you yet that this is your last season?

MD: It's hard to really grasp what it's going to feel like when it's over because I'm just so focused on the tournament that's coming up, but playing my last game in Memorial Stadium was a bit surreal. We've had practice yesterday and today in the stadium and tomorrow will be the last practice I'll ever have there and there's a bit of nostalgia attached to it. And honestly, it felt great to leave with a win in my last home game. It just felt so good because that's probably one of the games that I'll remember best for the rest of my life. That's just a great feeling -- especially, to go out in such a dramatic way, with the game going into second overtime. It was a pretty crazy win to have and it's a pretty good memory to have.

In terms of when the tournament's over, I'm sure I'll need a couple of days to take a step back, breathe, and try to figure out what I'm going to do next without lacrosse. It'll feel so good, but it will also be really weird. I have a feeling I'm not going to know what to do with myself when it's over.

CalBears.com: You guys earned the No. 3 Seed in the MPSF Tournament this week. How is preparing for this any different than every other game this season?

MD: For one thing, we're hoping to play three games in four days, which is a lot more than we ever would play. The most we've played would be two games in four days or three games in a whole week, so we need to make our practice a lot more tactically oriented instead of just doing straight conditioning all the time because we need to have our legs under us for the games.

You know you try not to look ahead to the next game, but you find yourself doing it. So you need to make sure that you're focusing on one game at a time and you can never overlook any opponent to get to the next one. I think that's very important.

Also, it's the final games, so everyone is twice as excited and twice as pumped up as they were. You can feel the excitement in the air. It's really fun to be at practice this week.

CalBears.com: What are you doing personally to prepare for the game?

MD: I've been watching a lot of film. I've been going in early for individual shooting and stick work. In practices, I've just been trying to keep up the communication, trying to talk with my teammates, trying to direct everybody on the field to where they're supposed to go. I've also finished all my work for the week, so I'm focusing on getting my head in the right place and preparing myself to play three games by knowing each of my opponents' strengths and weaknesses and making sure I get it done. No distractions, just lacrosse.

CalBears.com: What do you plan on doing after you graduate?

MD:: After I graduate, I'm moving to [Washington] D.C. with one of my roommates, where I have a summer internship with Harris Corporation. They do a lot of communications in technology. They also work a lot with the government. I'll be working in their PR office. I am extremely excited to be moving to a new city and experiencing a new place and meeting new people. So we'll see what happens with that and hopefully it will turn into a job.

Calbears.com: Are you planning to do anything involving lacrosse?

MD: It's not ruled out, but I don't have anything planned. I would love to coach some camps on the weekend because that's always good money. Maybe I'll come back here and coaching, not at Cal, but clinics and camps with younger kids. I coached last fall in Marin with some of my roommates and teammates, and if I end up coming back to San Francisco, I would love to continue doing that. It's a camp for third to fifth grade girls in Marin. They're all just starting out and they're just so adorable. They're so excited to learn everything they can about lacrosse that it just always makes you feel really good when you're there. I would love to work with the younger kids and try to teach them the basics and fundamentals at the youngest age possible so that they can get a leg up and really learn the game.

CalBears.com: What are you planning to do with your double major in sociology and mass communications?

MD: Hopefully, I will get a job somewhere in the world in communications market -- PR, marketing, advertising, mainly PR and advertising. But, I only want to do that for a couple of years. I do want to go back to graduate school, though I'm not sure what I want to go graduate school for, some kind of business maybe. I need to start thinking about studying for the GMAT and GRE and all of that. So basically, it just turns into more school later on, but I like learning.

CalBears.com: In high school, you played squash, basketball, tennis and lacrosse. What made you choose lacrosse over the others?

MD: I actually didn't start playing lacrosse until the very end of my sophomore year of high school. There were a few decisions that made me choose lacrosse. I was on track to play tennis in college and then sophomore year I made it to the West Coast team, a national high school team that goes and plays in Pennsylvania. From that I started getting looks from colleges and universities and I was like, "Wow, I can actually do this and get some money doing it!" I just didn't think it was an option because I didn't start playing until I was 16.

A whole bunch of schools recruited me for squash and tennis before lacrosse, but I just figured lacrosse is new, I love it, and it's fast-paced. It definitely incorporates a lot of the other sports I played because for me it's very hand-eye coordinated and you have to think on your feet or just react to what's in front of you, which is something I love to do. I wanted to stay in California because I went to boarding school in California and it was between Cal and a bunch of East Coast schools, so I definitely went for Cal.

CalBears.com: Do you feel like size/height is a big factor in lacrosse?

MD: Definitely not, especially for goalie. The cage is only six feet by six feet anyway, so with my stick, I can cover the entire cage no problem. With other sports, like tennis, it's easier when you're taller and height's definitely a factor. Squash, not so much, and for basketball it's definitely a factor. With lacrosse at my position as goalie, it's probably one of the few sports you can play in college where you don't need to be taller, which definitely works to my advantage because I'm only like 5-0 tall.

CalBears.com: What do you like to do with time away from lacrosse?

MD: I'm actually thinking about what I can do in May when I don't have lacrosse anymore. I'm a big pleasure reader, so I'll be doing a lot of that. But a lot of it has to do with hanging out with my friends, my roommates and teammates, for the last month that I have here. We want to go camping in Yosemite. We want to go down to Monterey. We're trying to plan a skydiving trip. We want to go up to Napa -- I really just love to travel, meet new people, see new things and get new experiences. I think that's what life is all about and that's hopefully what I'll be doing when school's over.

Yeah, I just want to spend as much time as possible with my friends and teammates before it's all over and we have to enter the real world all by ourselves. How many times in your life do you get to live with 20,000 people that are around your age? It's going to be a lot of trying to take advantage of what I have while I'm still here.

Calbears.com: What are you reading right now?

MD: Right now, I'm reading a book Coach [Theresa Sherry] gave me that's about Taoism and sports and a combination of the two, called "Thinking Body, Dancing Mind." I'm reading that to get my head in a good place for the games coming up. There are a lot of meditation techniques and visualization exercises that help calm yourself down if your nerves are jazzed up. I actually really enjoy the book. I started reading it thinking it would be kind of cheesy, but I actually really enjoy it. It's taught me a lot about myself and my mind in general. It's taught me how to control the thoughts that I'm thinking and how to release the negative thoughts, like the doubts I might have in my mind about what's to come. I'm just learning to think positively and effectively. It's very beneficial.

CalBears.com: I know YouTube is pretty popular amongst your team. What's your favorite YouTube video right now?

MD: My favorite YouTube video right now is the Susan Boyle video. It's not funny or anything, but it's this woman on "Britain's Got Talent," and no one expected her to do well. She's a 47-year old woman, never been married, never been kissed, never really been out of her hometown. Everyone was laughing at her because she said she wanted to become famous and she comes out and sings the most beautiful rendition of a song from Les Misérables. It was incredible and almost makes me want to cry every time I watch it. I'm a sucker for those stories about people succeeding when everyone else is against them. It's also really interesting because the interview is on there, too.

CalBears.com: Do you have any last remarks about the season?

MD: Just everybody stay tuned for a Cal victory at the MPSF Tournament. We're working our hardest to bring it home.