A senior defender for the Vanderbilt women’s soccer team, Gabby Rademaker has earned multiple honors from the SEC for her academics and community service. She loves playing an aggressive style of soccer, and says she appreciates every aspect of the game after missing an entire season with a knee injury suffered the day before her very first game at Vanderbilt.
Growing up in Tarpon Springs, Florida, it was the Greek capital of America. The culture was so cool. I was basically raised in a Greek community, and I’m not Greek at all. The music and the food were so good.
I love chicken souvlaki with tzatziki sauce. I’m a big sweets person so I always have baklava. I even try to make it sometimes because I love baking.
I have three older brothers and a stepbrother. I’m the only girl, I’m the youngest, and I’m the only one who plays competitive sports.
I was almost born on a soccer field. I had a fraternal twin and she passed away before she was born. They were waiting to induce my mom, and they told her she needed to go walk around. The only thing next to the hospital in Milwaukee was a soccer field.
Until I was 9 years old, I always played on boys’ soccer teams. When I started playing with girls, I always played up in age. When I was 12, I played with 14-year-olds. When those girls started graduating, I had to go back down with girls my own age. I noticed it wasn’t as competitive anymore. The girls were the same height as me!
When I was being recruited, I really wanted to play in the SEC. In the ACC, the girls are leaner and quicker, but every time I watched an SEC game I noticed how aggressive they were. That’s my kind of soccer. I love tackling, I love competing.
The balance between athletics and academics was important to me, so Vandy checked every box. I came on a visit here and committed right on campus. The girls and the coaches were so great. It felt like family.
I remember getting hurt in preseason practice so vividly. It was the day before our first game against Alabama, five minutes before practice ended. A girl played a ball and I went to lunge for it. She came in and my knee collapsed under me. I felt it pop.
You don’t believe it. I woke up the next morning thinking I could get up and go walk and go play, but my knee gave out on me.
Even if I couldn’t play soccer, I had to continue to be the person I am. I kept a positive attitude. I had a different role supporting my teammates any way I could, instead of sulking and not having any role at all. That really helped me grow and set me up to be successful after my injury.
It gave me a new appreciation for playing soccer. It’s easy to take it for granted, but now I’ll catch myself. I remember when I was wishing I could go through those grueling practices. I’ll say to myself, “Don’t take it for granted, you love the game, you’re lucky you get to play it.”
Going on a service trip to New Zealand was the greatest thing I’ve ever done in my life. It was life-changing. We brought clean drinking water to 10,000 people in different indigenous tribes. We went to different schools and watched these kids run up to this huge bucket. They would undo the faucet and the water would come out black. We’d ask them questions about who’s been sick from drinking water, and they all raised their hands. We asked how many of them had watched a family member die from drinking water, and almost all of them raised their hands. It was eye-opening.
I’m doing volunteer work here now, and I’m going back to New Zealand after I graduate. A lot of us on the team are donating toiletries to homeless people after Nia Dorsey came up with the idea. To make a big impact, even little things matter.
Coming in as an athlete, there can be this stigma that you’re not going to make it in academics, but with our work ethic we exceed further. I’ve loved my classes. I’m a research assistant at Peabody and I’m a double major in childhood development and medicine, heath and society, with a minor in psychology.
With my work study, we’re paired with Harvard trying to develop a new curriculum for Algebra 1 students. I was never praised as a kid for academics — it was always sports. Now it’s cool to have both.
I love math because there’s a legit answer. There’s no he-said, she-said. I love how once you get that formula and see how the numbers work, it clicks.
I’m applying to nursing schools. Vandy’s my first choice because I love it here. I really want to be a pediatric nurse practitioner in acute care. I’m volunteering in the pediatric intensive care unit at Vanderbilt hospital now. I’ve done a palliative care with Alzheimer’s patients and that was the most difficult thing I’d ever done. The whole process of dying is very new to me. With kids, it’s even harder.
The thing I like about this team is that we fight. That’s one thing I noticed right off the bat. The freshmen came right in as very solid, consistent players. This team is a close and we work well together and just want it more. It’s going to be a great year.
Interviewed by Andrew Maraniss
