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" # ! ! ! $ # | hristine Nairn's blessing was also her curse. A four-time prep AllAmerican at Maryland's Archbishop Spalding High School, Nairn was part of Penn State's incoming 2008 class, but she redshirted that fall to help the U.S. women win the U20 World Cup. The following summer, as the youngest player on the roster of the senior national team, the midfielder appeared twice and scored her debut goal. She was just 18. She suited up for her first college game that fall. To be so good – so composed, so instinctive, so technically proficient – so young was Nairn's blessing. It was also her curse. "Things came so easy to her," Penn State coach Erica Walsh said. "She didn't know what she didn't know." That conundrum – a player already so imposing on the pitch she couldn't see all the ways she might get even better – defined Nairn's first few seasons in Happy Valley. She was the unanimous Big Ten Freshman of the Year in 2009 and a first-team All-Conference pick in each of her first three seasons. But it was in her off-season meeting with coaches in the spring of her junior year that Nairn finally figured things out. "Coach laid into me," Nairn recalled. "She said, 'Are these still your goals – to be on the national team, to compete for a national championship?' I needed to hear it – to kind of fall to pieces before I could put everything back together." That gut check proved invaluable. As a senior last fall, Nairn was dominant on a team that reached the NCAA title game. Her excellence was obvious on the stat sheet – her 17 goals and 12 FINISHING KICK Nairn was a finalist for the Hermann Trophy after leading Penn State with 17 goals and 12 assists in her final season. Penn State Athletic Communications

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