Nov. 2, 2007

By Daniel Blank
Special to TarHeelBlue.com

Karen Shelton doesn't like comparing players and she doesn't see the value in handing out superlatives.

She's coached All-Americans and Olympians and led numerous conference and national champions in her 27 years at North Carolina. Shelton's seen some of the premiere field hockey players around the country and the world, so she isn't one to get caught up in labeling players the best at this or the greatest at that.

But when Shelton talks about Rachel Dawson, she readily volunteers that the fifth-year senior just might be the most competitive player she's ever coached. Maybe the only thing more surprising than Shelton committing to such a statement, though, is that during the early stages of Dawson's Carolina career, Shelton sometimes viewed that desire as a detriment to Dawson's progress.

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Dawson's competitive streak wasn't ignited on the practice fields of Henry Stadium or at Eastern High School in Voorhees, N.J. It all started in her backyard in Berlin, N.J.

Dawson is the fifth of eight children born to a family chock full of athletic brilliance and every day was an all-out competition, whether it was at a backyard wiffle ball game or for seconds at the dinner table. "Never a dull moment" was the way her father David described it.

Dawson's four older siblings (two brothers, two sisters) all played sports in college. (A younger sister, Meghan, is a freshman with the Tar Heels). Her sisters Natalie and Sarah had the biggest influence on Rachel as both had accomplished field hockey careers at the University of Iowa and with the U.S. National Team. But Rachel's relationships with the two were very different.

Natalie, six years older, was an inspiration for Rachel. She committed to Iowa around the same time Rachel first picked up a stick and Rachel felt she was destined to eventually follow her sister to Iowa City. But Sarah and Rachel had the classic sibling rivalry relationship.

"Growing up, Sarah and I always played on the same team, I was always three and a half years younger so that always set the seed of envy - or just hatred," Rachel said. "We never got along because we were constantly competing. We shared a room our entire lives, we had bunk beds, we shared the same closet, we'd fight over clothes, we'd fight over everything. So we really just didn't get along when we were younger, but as we've grown up we've just become best friends."

So when Sarah chose to follow Natalie to Iowa, all of a sudden the school became less enticing to Rachel. North Carolina jumped to the fore because it offered Rachel a chance to carve out her own legacy athletically and the prestigious business school allowed her to chase her academic goals.

Rachel's impact with the Tar Heels was immediate. As a freshman, she led the team in goals as she earned ACC Freshman of the Year honors and was named National Freshman of the Year by collegefieldhockey.com. If anything, she was better as a sophomore. Her scoring went down in her second season but she was also an All-America and the ACC's Defensive Player of the Year. "I knew the kind of player that she was," Sheton said. "I can remember going to watch her play at Eastern High School and she was a woman among girls. She was just head and shoulders above anybody out there on that field."

There was never any question about Dawson's talent - the array of awards and her National Team appearances were evidence enough. But something was holding her back from reaching her full potential.

Nobody wanted to win more than Dawson, to get to the ball first, to obliterate her individual matchup. Her competitiveness helped her overcome some of her deficiencies such as average foot speed. But sometimes that competitiveness got in the way of the overall goal. If Dawson couldn't beat her opponents to the ball, she'd just run through them. If she wasn't playing up to her own high standards for herself or her teammates she'd stalk around the field furious at everybody and anybody.

"There was a physical danger, an element of danger when you were going 1-v-1 because she wouldn't hesitate to take a player out in a 1-v-1 battle," Shelton said. "And not that she hasn't really tempered that back, because I think she's still competitive, she's just more under control in terms of her body, her skill level. She doesn't need to be the bull in the china shop. She's a skillful, brilliant field hockey genius out there.

"Emotionally she keeps herself in check now," Shelton added. "You want to win, you want to perform so well and you want everyone else to do it that she would have these levels of frustration that would just - not erupt - you could tell she would be angry. And she would be angry and nobody would know who she was angry with."

But the sweeping change in Dawson's persona - both on and off the field - came last season in what should have been her senior year. Part of her development in her ability to harness her passion was simply growing older and more mature. But the process was greatly accelerated when she redshirted during the 2006 season to participate with the National Team at the World Cup in Madrid.

Dawson distinguished herself with her superior talent once again, becoming one of six finalists for the WorldHockey Women's Young Player of the Year award - the first American to ever be nominated for the honor.

Playing at the highest level also forced Dawson to learn how to keep her competitive streak in check. She stopped lingering on her mistakes and started to learn how to prioritize where she needed to guide her emotions.

"That international experience, just to play with women who are so much older, so much more experienced, having four coaches who have years and years of experience - it's just helped her focus, helped her mellow without losing competitiveness and just find this whole new level of existence and consciousness," Shelton said.

This time, Sarah was a calming force instead of a spark for Rachel's competitive powder keg. That doesn't mean Sarah and Rachel still didn't go at each other on the practice field, but the older sister was something familiar for Rachel as the National Team travelled to far flung places like Chile and Azerbaijan.

But maybe the biggest influence on Rachel was U.S. team captain and former Tar Heel Kate Barber. It is often the case with athletics that a great player on the field struggles to be a strong leader off it because that athlete expects the same level of excellence from her teammates as she expects from herself. Watching Barber interact with her teammates taught Dawson how to be a better leader when she returned to Chapel Hill.

"I guess I always thought that leaders had to be the loudest, they had to be the one who's telling everyone what to do," said Dawson, one of two co-captains for UNC. "`Tiki' leads by example and when she says something it holds so much meaning because she doesn't say everything all the time. She picks and chooses her moments. She sees the bigger picture. I think I've realized so much and I've changed my concept of what a leader is."

Playing with all those great players at such a high level of competition also helped Dawson become a smarter player. As the anchor of the defense, it is Dawson's job to coordinate the back line and keep it in sync against the enemy attack. And after watching the best in the world, Dawson can read and react to the play better.

"I can react to plays quicker. It has just helped my development so much," Dawson said. "In the mental sense, it's really helped lift my mental game, it's helped me find the way I need to prepare mentally for bigger games, and also how I need to interact with my teammates better."

After the World Cup experience, Dawson returned to the Tar Heels a more complete and more determined player. She heeded Barber's `lead-by-example' lesson and was named UNC's Practice Player of the Year.

"I wanted Rachel to go, to focus on the World Cup," Shelton said of Dawson's redshirt season. "She comes back to me a better player. So all spring long, she's inspiring, she's working, bring this intensity level that nobody else has. But she's helped others get closer to that point so she brings up the level of our practices, to find that intensity level."

With Dawson back in the lineup Carolina has been close to unstoppable. She has the most goals for the country's highest scoring attack and her bruising play on the backline has helped the Tar Heels to the nation's stingiest defense. UNC hasn't allowed a goal with Dawson - the recently anointed ACC Defensive Player of the Year - on the field since early September and that defensive dominance is due in no small part to Dawson's ability to communicate her vast knowledge of the sport with her teammates.

"She's absolutely phenomenal," said goalkeeper Brianna O'Donnell. "Just the other day (in practice) she was explaining defensive structuring to me - I learn something new from her every day. Having her in front of me - it definitely eases my mind."

Says Shelton: "Her teammates trust her and they listen and they respond. She doesn't try to do too much anymore. She does an awful lot for us, but she doesn't take it over the top. And I think in the past she tended to do that at times. She's just grown in every way a student-athlete could grow."

To attribute the Tar Heels' success entirely to Dawson and her transformation while with the National Team would be simplistic, especially with three of her teammates joining her on the All-ACC Team. But with Dawson's inspired play leading the way, the Tar Heels enter the postseason as the favorites to win Shelton's fifth national championship. And if Dawson can help accomplish that goal, she might be more than the most competitive player Shelton has ever coached - she might rank among the greatest to ever play for North Carolina.

"I didn't envision her being this good this quickly, how quickly she's developed in her four and a half years she's been here," Shelton said. "She's really taken off, in terms of her knowledge of the game, her work ethic, her understanding, her leadership, just every fundamental skill, every way she could improve, she's improved. She's special."