Celebrating Lauren Cheney: Our Bruin (American) Hero

We don't subscribe to hard copies of magazine any more. I catch up Sports Illustrated at the barbers every month. I don't care much for the ESPN magazine either. However, there is one magazine that still gets mailed to our house every month. That's the UCLA magazine. Perhaps because we just enjoying getting literature that says "UCLA" in big fonts. J

There is another reason I like getting the hard copy of the UCLA magazine. We enjoy the sports stories that are published in this magazine giving us an opportunity to get to know some of our great Bruin athletes. Last week I wrote how the latest issue featured LRMAM.  It also published a nice piece on Lauren Cheney.

Regular readers of BN (who are here with us 365 days a year, not just during football and hoops season) should know Lauren really well. Anyway, Lauren recently sat down with Paul Feinberg shared her thoughts on returning as an American Hero:

"As an athlete, it's hard to feel successful when you lose," says Cheney, who has returned to the Women's Professional Soccer League's Boston Breakers. "That isn't the first reaction. But after coming back, talking to so many people, seeing 15,000 fans at the Rochester game and knowing we really impacted people, we can look at it as a success."

Those impacted include Oscar winner Tom Hanks and Super Bowl MVP Aaron Rodgers, two among thousands who tweeted their support and admiration during the Cup run. "A man in Indiana paid for my meal and told me I was a hero, [but] I actually don't feel like a hero," Cheney protests. "Soldiers fighting for our country are heroes. But our team represented in a way that led people to call us heroes; that's pretty flattering."

Cheney, who was not shy about tweeting about her love for her boyfriend, former Bruin and now Philadelphia 76er Jrue Holiday, joined the national team in the midst of her record-breaking UCLA career, getting reserve minutes during the gold medal 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. She still considered herself a bench player heading into the World Cup, but played her way into Coach Pia Sundhage's starting line-up. At age 23, she should be a fixture on the national team for years to come. Still, Cheney's a winner - and her bright future does not dull the frustration of falling short in Germany.

"There's a buzz around our team, we're getting recognized, but that's a constant reminder that we didn't win. That's my competitive side," she says. "But we have to move on. As a team, we're looking forward to the [2012 London] Olympics. We want to perform and make our nation proud."

Read the whole piece here. Worth repeating again rooting for Lauren and her team-mates was not just about rooting for heroes in red, white and blue, also about celebrating the American human spirit.

GO BRUINS.