Standing Her Ground : Spirited Rachel Gagliano of Monroe High Asks and Takes No Quarter as She Gamely Competes in Boys’ Soccer

Just try to knock down Rachel Gagliano on the soccer field and see what happens. “I’m a big girl, I can defend myself,” said Gagliano, a 5-foot-3 1/2, 122-pound junior midfielder on the Monroe High soccer team.

That’s the boys’ soccer team.

Of approximately 300 players on 15 Valley-area City Section boys’ soccer teams, Gagliano is the only girl. Gagliano, a member of the U. S. Youth Soccer Assn. Junior National Pool for players under 19 years of age, transferred from Alemany High last September so she could attend school in the neighborhood where she grew up--and play on a boys’ team.

“I’ve been playing with boys on club teams since I was 12,” she said. “That’s why I had trouble at Alemany. My level of aggression was a lot higher than the girls. I’d get called for a lot of fouls because I’m rough. I’m used to playing with guys.”

But she is not accustomed to yielding to them.

Already a trend-setter, Gagliano is going one step further: When the going gets rough, she takes no guff.

“There are games that have been rough, but it doesn’t bother me,” she said. “I grew up with three older brothers beating me up all the time, so I was well-prepared for it.

“I’m used to getting knocked around and I’m used to fighting back. If I get knocked, I knock back harder.”

If she won’t, her teammates will. “If it’s a cheap shot, of course we’d get mad,” junior forward Jose Valdez said. “If we had to do something, we’d do it.”

Interestingly, this is the inaugural season for City Section girls’ soccer. But when Monroe was unable to field a team because no coach was available, Gagliano’s wish was fulfilled. City and Southern Section rules prohibit girls playing on boys’ teams, unless no girls’ team in that sport is offered.

All concerned have benefited from the circumstances. Monroe is 7-0, 3-0 in Valley Pac-8 Conference play, and although Gagliano has scored just 1 goal--a penalty kick in a 1-0 win over Poly--she cracked the starting lineup in Wednesday’s 3-2 win over Reseda.

Her contribution, Coach Les Sasvary said, cannot be underestimated.

“Talent is talent and she’s got it,” Sasvary said. “She’s a good passer, a good ballhandler. And she’s the best penalty shooter on the team.”

Yet Gagliano’s push-comes-to-shove attitude has made her coach uneasy about giving her playing time.

“She stands up to the boys and that’s what I’m worried about,” Sasvary said. “I can picture that it’s going to get physical.”

It already has. Sasvary has pulled Gagliano out of 2 matches this season “for her own safety.”

“Against Taft,” Gagliano said, “a guy and I went up to head the ball and I knocked him down. Then the guy started saying all kinds of stuff to me.”

Valdez’s version of the story includes the opponent attempting to kick Gagliano.

“All the guys tried to defend her,” he said. “But nothing really happened. We worry about her, but we know she can take care of herself.”

When things became physical against Kennedy, Sasvary again removed Gagliano.

“I hate it when he does that,” Gagliano said. “See, he doesn’t want me to get hurt. But I told him, ‘Everybody on this team is going to get hurt before I do.’ ”

Said Sasvary: “It would not be in the best interest of myself and my team to have her hurt. I think she can take care of herself, but it’s still my responsibility.”

Tenacity is innate with Gagliano, according to Berhane Andeberhan, women’s soccer coach at Stanford and Western Regional coach of the USYSA women’s team.

“She’s very determined,” Andeberhan said. “Even when she was one of the youngest ones and didn’t quite have the maturity and talent, she wanted it. She felt like she should make it, the implication being that she would make it and she did.”

Gagliano, who began playing when she was 4, entered the Olympic Development program at 12. And in November, as a member of the 14-state Western Regional team, she was one of 72 players selected to attend a national camp in Orlando, Fla.

There she was selected among 30 players for the National Pool and elevated from the under-16 to the under-19 team.

“That’s a rarity,” Andeberhan said. “It’s quite an honor to be moved up and considered one of the top 30.”

Although women’s soccer is not a scheduled event for the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, the idea is being kicked around, Andeberhan said.

Gagliano’s goal is to be one of the 16 players selected for the national team.

Of course, that would mean back to playing with girls, er, women.

“That’s different, though,” she said, “because once you get up higher, the competition is higher.”

Until then, Gagliano must content herself with “guys who think, ‘I’m the guy out here and I’ll knock you around.’ ”

“I don’t let it get to me, because I know I’m good enough to be out there,” she said. “Eventually, they’ll learn that what they said was dumb.

“I’m proud of myself. I think I have a lot of guts.”