Progress, step by step
Recovering from torn ACL, Mitts feeling optimistic

By Rory Glynn • rglynn@enquirer.com • May 20, 2008

Pushing off a surgically repaired left knee, Heather Mitts just took a significant step.

When new coach Pia Sundhage makes her first cuts this weekend at the U.S. Soccer women's national team training camp, Mitts won't be among them.

"I just talked to Pia, and she's going to keep me around for the next week," Mitts, a St. Ursula Academy graduate, said by phone from Carson, Calif., where the national team is training at the Home Depot Center.

"I'm feeling pretty good about it. Obviously, I had a lot of questions before I got here because I hadn't played in so long. I wasn't sure how I'd be able to step in and compete. I have a lot of things to work on, but it's going pretty well."

Sundhage, who took over as head coach last November, invited 37 players to this camp. She pared 11 players from the roster Saturday and now will focus on the remainder of the field for the final two weeks of camp, then choose the roster for the Algarve Cup March 5-12 in Portugal and for the CONCACAF Olympic Women's Qualifying Tournament April 2-13 in Mexico.

Mitts, who suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament in May, hoped to be ready for the Algarve Cup, but if that's too soon, she'll focus on Mexico.

"To come into camp and do well is one thing," Mitts said, "but a highly competitive tournament might be a huge step.

"From Day 1 (after the injury), the Olympics has been my goal. That hasn't changed."

Mitts played on the 2004 Olympic soccer team that won gold in Athens. A member of the national team since 1999, she hoped to follow Olympic gold with a World Cup championship, but the torn ACL scuttled that. It was the second World Cup setback for Mitts, who missed the 2003 Cup because of a broken tibia.

This time around, Mitts began rehabilitation immediately. Training at Athletes' Performance, a fitness company that shares the Home Depot Center complex, she began biking a month after the injury, then jogging. By September, when she was in Bristol, Conn., helping ESPN with coverage of the World Cup, she had started sprinting and agility drills, and by December she was going full-bore on soccer drills.

"I didn't want any issues as far as setbacks, and - knock on wood - it's all been pretty good. I haven't really experienced the pain that some girls have told me they have.

"Defensively, getting back the one-on-one skills, that will come."

Mitts passed a mental milestone this week when she got tangled with another player and tumbled - and got right back up.

"I thought I'd be really tentative out there," she said. "I was like, 'I actually got hit, and I'm fine; my knee is fine.' "

Mitts joined the national team for a training camp in December, albeit while wearing a knee brace. Now she's shed the brace.

"I thought I was going to (wear one longer), but I found it really immobilizing," Mitts said. "I couldn't play my game."

Mitts credits Sundhage, who coached defenders when Mitts played for the Philadelphia Charge of the Women's United Soccer Association, with helping her land on the national team in the first place.

"She really helped me be a much better defender," Mitts said. "Everybody seems to love her."

Sundhage replaced Greg Ryan, whose 45-1-9 record in three years was overshadowed by the loss to Brazil in last year's World Cup, and the accompanying controversy for his decision to replace starting goalkeeper Hope Solo with veteran Briana Scurry.

Mitts thinks Sundhage, a native of Sweden and a 22-year veteran of the international game as a player, will help.

"Pia has a different philosophy, which is kind of refreshing," Mitts said. "The American philosophy has always been hard work. We'd outwork everyone. Now it seems more soccer-specific, based on skill maybe a little more. I don't think we'll be as predictable on the field."