Soccer, School Is All Greek to MacLeod

Remember the Alphas and the Epsilons? Remember high school English class and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World”?

Megan MacLeod, a soccer player at Trabuco Hills High, has been thinking about that novel a lot lately.

It’s one of many that she has read for Sheila Hillinger’s senior English class.

Huxley’s satiric look at a futuristic utopia--in which people are divided into five classes, Alpha (the most intelligent) to Epsilon--is MacLeod’s favorite.

“We have read 10 novels this year,” she said. “Everyone drops their jaw when they hear that at our school, but it’s seriously fun. I have learned so much in that class.”

MacLeod (Huxley definitely would have made her an Alpha) has an attitude about learning that matches her attitude on the soccer field. In both arenas, her love for what she’s doing results in brilliance.

In school, MacLeod was selected the most outstanding student as a sophomore and as a junior. She has a 4.7 grade-point average and is the front-runner in a competitive race for class valedictorian.

In soccer, she’s a creative midfielder whose ball-handling skills are so superior, she seems to dance easily around defenders. She has played with the prestigious Mission Viejo Shamrocks soccer club the past five years, helping them advance to the national final in 1995. She also traveled to Europe with the Olympic Development Program’s Western Regional age-group team last summer.

In high school soccer last season, the Mustangs fared well in the nonleague season, but struggled in the South Coast League, finishing 2-8.

This season, however, MacLeod is trying to lead Trabuco Hills (6-2-2) to another kind of “new world.” The Mustangs defended their title in the Irvine tournament earlier this month and are ranked fourth in the county.

Trabuco Hills was depleted by illness and injury in the Foothill Excaliber tournament this weekend, when they lost in the first round to El Dorado. Trabuco Hills will play Woodbridge on Friday in the Excaliber consolation semifinals.

The Mustangs expect to be at full strength for the start of league play Jan. 9, when they gain the services of standout forward Lisa Casey, who has been out since the early season because of a broken collarbone.

Much of the Mustangs’ hope is wrapped up in first-year Coach Jack Peterson, who took over for Patti Bracey before the season. Peterson played soccer at Edison High in 1987 and ’88 before attending Orange Coast College, Cypress and UC Santa Cruz. He assisted Chuck Morales last season at Santa Margarita and also served as coach of the Foothill Blades girls’ club team.

Peterson has given much-needed focus to a team that returned seven talented starters from last season.

“Once we started playing the first couple games, they started believing in themselves,” Peterson said. “They really made a commitment to rededicate themselves to this season.”

MacLeod and Casey have provided the leadership as team captains. MacLeod’s particular gift, in addition to her considerable talent, is intensity.

“Megan is the epitome of leaving everything on the field,” Peterson said. “She does not save herself at any time during any game or practice. She is the heart and soul of this team.”

MacLeod has had several scholarship offers to play college soccer, but her two top choices are Harvard and Yale, which don’t offer athletic scholarships.

MacLeod is still deciding between the schools and plans to play soccer wherever she goes. She also is thinking about majoring in biology.

“I love working with the plants and animals,” she said. “Even if we’re dissecting, it doesn’t bother me. It kind of makes sense more than all the other subjects. You can walk out the door and see it, [whereas] in calculus, it’s like, ‘Great, I got what x is, but what does it mean?’ ”

MacLeod’s inquisitiveness was fostered in sixth grade, when her teacher, Doug Yonce, inspired her in mathematics at Mission Viejo’s De Portola Elementary School. Yonce taught complicated principles to his sixth-graders in a way they could understand.

“I still will come up against things in math and I will say, ‘I remember that!’ He made it simple. It was just incredible. He really just inspired me to work,” she said.

As inspiring as many of her teachers have been, MacLeod’s excellent grades have been a result of hard work.

“I tear my hair out,” she said. “I’ll get home and get right to it. I pretty much have to. A lot of it is a lack of sleep. By Friday I’m just a monster and everyone pretty much avoids me.”

So why does she do it?

“I think I’m a perfectionist,” she said. “At soccer, I love the sport. But academically? You can’t love being up to 3 in the morning. I’m a perfectionist. I hate doing less than my potential. It’s not just [an affinity for] winning. It’s a [hatred] of losing. I hate losing. I think about it for days. I hate getting Bs. I think about it for a week.”

It’s Alpha, all the way.