She had done it once before, and loved it.
So Cowgirl senior soccer player Summer Taube couldn't wait for a return trip to the Snowy Range, some 30 miles west of Laramie, to go snowboarding again. Not just snowboarding, but in just her second attempt, she wanted to snowboard off of a jump!
It didn't turn out so well.
"You could say I didn't land it," Wyoming's team leader and top goal scorer says with a grin. She was knocked unconscious, and when she woke up, she was in an ambulance.
"I was hospitalized for a week, and as it turned out I had broken my back. My doctors said I might not be able to play soccer again. That was a tough thing to hear, but I never really considered that as a possibility."
A back brace for three months, a ton of rehab and a redshirt year were all part of her story. She had shattered two vertebra, and compressed some others. "I have significant rods and screws in the middle of my back," she admits.
It was a long, cold winter for Summer.
"I had my ups and downs, positives and negatives as I was going through it," she says. "It really took two years for me to be able to do the things that a soccer player needs to do. The most difficult part was the technical-skills aspect. I was way behind there, and it took me a while to feel comfortable with the skills part. I had underestimated that, and that was the toughest part of the recovery."
Head Coach Pete Cuadrado was recruiting in Australia when he got the call about Summer's accident. "I got the first plane back," he says. "When I got home the doctors told me she may never walk again, let alone play soccer again. But she was so determined. She willed herself back."
She obviously regained those skills because two years later she was back playing for the Cowgirls. After seeing limited action in 2015 as a freshman, she redshirted in 2016, and returned to action as a redshirt sophomore in 2017. As a junior last season she started in all 20 matches and logged 1,572 minutes.
As Wyoming heads into a big home weekend hosting San Jose State tomorrow (3 p.m., Louis S. Madrid Sports Complex), and Fresno State on Sunday (12 p.m.), Summer is tied for the team scoring lead with four goals. In fact, last Sunday at Colorado College she scored a pair of goals including the game winner. To say that she is all the way back would be an understatement.
"I feel very fortunate, the accident could have been much worse," she says.
Wyoming recruited Taube as a defensive player out of Las Vegas. That has all changed. "I do love playing defense," says Summer who began playing soccer at four years of age. "But I have to admit, there's just nothing like scoring a goal."
"She comes from one of the two best club soccer leagues in the country," says Head Coach Pete Cuadrado. "We have recruited several outstanding Cowgirls from Las Vegas and that league, but none any better than Summer. Her toughness and will to win are second to none.
"She has the whole package. She gives you toughness when you need it, she gives you skill when you need it. She is a great leader, and always was on the field. Now as a senior she is a vocal leader. Simply put, she wants to be happy and she does the things necessary for her and her teammates to be happy. She is special, and I would support her in anything she wanted to do."
Ironically, Summer would like to be a doctor at some point, and admits her injury helped that decision. An outstanding student, she is a double major in Physiology and Kinesiology, and carries a 3.930 grade point average.
"I'm really interested in sports medicine," Summer says. "I enjoy shadowing Dr. (sports medicine physician Matt) Boyer which has given me a great feel for that area. I'm all about the human system and how it functions."
Summer is the outdoors type (obviously) and that's one of the many things she loves about Wyoming. "I'm from Las Vegas, and people don't think of it as a great place for outdoor activities. There is a lot of great hiking outside the city. That's not the challenge, it's the heat. You can't enjoy the outdoors there unless you get up very early. That's why I love it here."
Beginning in 2010, Taube played for the Heat, one of Las Vegas' elite soccer clubs which competes in the Elite Clubs National League (ECNL). She received a lot of attention from universities throughout the country, especially in the East while playing for the Heat. Wyoming's coaches saw her play, and were extremely interested. They called her and invited her for a visit.
"I was honored to come on a visit, and when I got here I immediately feel in love with it. I was sold. I couldn't wait to experience the outdoors here. It was also only the second time in my life I had ever seen snow. It snowed once in Las Vegas when I was in sixth grade. I laugh about it now because they closed school, and the snow was gone by noon. I couldn't wait to snowboard! This IS the place."
Summer enjoys photography as a hobby. "I'm not very good at it, but I really have fun with it. There is so much to take in here and to photograph. Look around, there are great pictures everywhere with this scenery. I love it."
She's also sold on her sport. "I love everything about it," she says. "I love the team aspect of it as well as the physical aspect. I love battling people off the ball. Everyone calls me the tank. But the best part of it all are the friends I have made. There's nothing like teammates. I have so many friends thanks to soccer.
"We have a young team, but I really like how we are improving. Since I'm one of the older players, I enjoy being a leader. I remember how helpful the seniors were to me when I was a freshman, and I want to be a big sister to our younger players too."
Rebounding from the injury, Summer has fashioned quite a Cowgirl career. I'm sure it has been extremely satisfying to her to come back the way she has. It's also a great credit to her will. Like her coach says, she is a special young lady.
I'd tell her to stay off snowboards, but I'm almost pretty sure she wouldn't listen.
