You can take the player out of the game, but you can’t take the game out of the player.
On Jan. 5, 2011, Kara Lang, an eight-year veteran of the Canadian women’s soccer team, announced her retirement, citing persistent knee problems as the reason for her calling it quits.
Lang was only 24 when she walked away from the sport she loved, a cruel and premature end to a career spent in loyal service to her country on the field.
Born in Calgary, Lang made her debut for Canada as a 15-year-old in a match against Scotland on Mar. 1, 2002. She quickly became a mainstay with the national team, scoring 34 goals in 92 appearances, and helped Canada reach the semifinals of the 2003 Women’s World Cup in the United States when she scored two goals in six games.
In addition to appearing in two World Cups and the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Lang was also a collegiate standout at UCLA and played four seasons with the Vancouver Whitecaps of the old W-League.
But when she tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee in September 2009 while at UCLA — the exact same injury she suffered three years earlier — it marked the beginning of the end of her playing career.
Since announcing her retirement, Lang has been busy with a variety of projects, including a career in broadcasting, serving as a TV commentator for Sportsnet. Still, even though she’s had a year to adjust to life away from soccer, the competitive fires still burn inside her.
"I miss it a lot. I think every day about playing again or whether I could still play," Lang told sportsnet.ca. "But at the same time in the past year I’ve had a lot of really great opportunities and most of them have come out of connections that I made through soccer or came out of my soccer career. It’s brought me to this place that I’m at now, and I’m just trying to look forward."
Lang added: "I think about it every day. I’m watching a lot more soccer on TV than I ever did. It’s hard but it’s one way for me to still feel a part of it. It’s been tough."
Lang called this past year "one of the most challenging" in her life, but she hasn’t sulked about her fortune. Instead, she’s come to understand how fortunate she was to make a living as an athlete in the first place.
"When I was playing, I always tried to be aware of how fortunate I was to play soccer as a job. Once you step away from it all, it really puts things into perspective and you realize how awesome it really was and how lucky I was," Lang said.
The biggest challenge for Lang has been adjusting to a day-to-day routine that doesn’t revolve entirely around soccer.
"For so many years my main responsibility was to make sure I was fit to play. Above anything else, my training came first. All of a sudden you retire and you find yourself in a position where you have a lot more responsibilities," Lang explained.
"Everything that I’ve done since retiring has been new for me — they’ve all been things that haven’t necessarily been in my comfort zone, and so I’ve had to build up a lot of courage to take this stuff on because for so long soccer was all I knew."
Lang’s work as a broadcaster has allowed her to remain close to the game she loves — even if she remains self-conscious about her TV work.
"Especially with the path that I have chosen to take, it’s one where you are putting yourself out there and I don’t have much experience at this point, so everything I do is brand new to me. I feel like a rookie again," Lang quipped.
While admitting she could have kept playing for a bit longer, Lang doesn’t regret the timing of her retirement because had she continued it would have an adverse effect on the quality of her life once her career was finally over.
"I can’t complain; other than a little bit of pain in my one knee, I’m very healthy," Lang said. "When I was playing and dealing with the injury and the constant pain, as much as the physical strain I was going through, there was also a mental strain.
"Being home every day and not being able to perform to the best of your abilities, for me it was very trying and to be honest I was miserable for the last few months of that last year I was playing."
Aside from her broadcast work, Lang teaches classes at her family’s yoga studio. She also coaches a street soccer team in Toronto, running practices and sometimes even participating in the pick-up games if she needs to make sides even — all of which takes a physical toll.
"Even with that I still find myself needing a few days to recover," Lang admitted.
Lang doesn’t harbour any dreams of becoming a full-time coach, although she remains deeply committed to elevating the profile of the women’s game as Canada prepares to host the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2015.
"If there are any chances for me to raise awareness and help grow the game, I’d like to do that," Lang said.