OLYMPIA, Wash. – The Evergreen State College is proud to highlight former Geoduck student-athletes Becky Burton from women's soccer and Carlos Valencia from men's soccer as Evergreen celebrates 45-years of intercollegiate athletics. Burton and Valencia competed for their respective teams at Evergreen from 1983 through 1985.
Burton arrived at Evergreen in 1982 and graduated in 1986. She was a soccer player for the Geoducks during her final three years on campus.
"I was never a skilled soccer player but was fast and had a lot of stamina," Burton said. "One of my favorite soccer memories was going to the University of Victoria every year."
She also served as the soccer team manager for a year or two. She worked in the recreation center all four years.
"One year, we got brand new uniforms," Burton recalled. "We had our silver uniforms (away), but the dark green home uniforms hadn't arrived yet. The visitors showed up in silver and black uniforms, so we had to dig out a bunch of old green t-shirts form a storage room to wear. Our away uniforms were way nicer."
Burton also competed in track and field as a sprinter for two seasons. She competed in the 100-meter dash and the 200-meter dash.
"I had long spikes on my thrift store track shoes. Back then the track was dirt," Burton said. "I was practicing starts, caught my spikes, and did a long skid on my knees. Ouch! When we got to our first meet where the track was normal, I didn't know enough to have a teammate stand on my starting block, so it slipped back when I started. One of the judges saw it and let me run again in the next heat."
As a Geoduck, Burton was impressed with her coaches.
"My coaches, Tamar Chotzen and Jane Culliton in soccer, Pete Steilberg in track, and the rest of the athletics staff were very supportive," Burton noted. "I wrote a letter to the editor once in response to someone who suggested that athletics were a poor use of our time and energy. I found athletics gave me a good balance with my academics and I found a good community there."
Valencia was a goalie for the men's soccer team. He credited his heads coach for changing the soccer culture at Evergreen.
"Arno Zosky, a German coach, transformed the whole school soccer culture and reputation from being a hippy one into a more competitive and sophisticated one," Valencia said. "Arno started in 1983 to recruit great soccer player and Evergreen became a respectable team, beating teams that in the past used to humiliate the Geoducks with embarrassing numbers of goals.
Valencia also recalled several of his teammate.
"In that same year, I played with excellent players like John Purtteman, Robert Becker, and many others," Valencia commented.
Evergreen added athletics in 1979 and began competing in the 1979-80 academic year. The first teams for the Geoducks were men's and women's soccer and men's and women's swimming. Evergreen is a member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) and the Cascade Collegiate Conference (CCC).
The Geoducks currently participate in 11 sports. Evergreen competes in men's and women's cross country, men's and women's soccer, women's volleyball, men's and women's basketball, men's and women's wrestling, and men's and women's track and field (indoors and outdoors).
