Sports: Volleyball, Soccer
Favorite athlete: Abby Wambach
Favorite team: Sky Blue FC (WPS team) or Women’s National Soccer Team
Favorite memory competing in sports: Playing in the U17 ECNL National Championship in Colorado and it being aired on ESPNU
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: I had to wear Rec-specs while playing soccer and volleyball until I was able to finally put in contacts, which was around age 13.
Music on your iPod: I have a variety of songs on my iPod, but my workout playlist consists of T-Pain, Drake, Beyonce, Big Sean, Kanye West, LMFAO, Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, Wiz Khalifa, Eminem, Tyga, and Flo Rida.
Future plans: I hope to be playing professional soccer; however, the women’s league has been suspended until an indefinite time. If this is not an option, I hope to be possibly pursuing a career in the sports industry.
Words to live by: “I’m not telling you it’s going to be easy, I’m telling you it’s going to be worth it.”
One goal before turning 30: I want to be married with a family.
One thing people don’t know about me: I am obsessed with Nike sneakers. Right now I have 13 pairs!
When Hatboro-Horsham girls volleyball coach Kathy Tanner first started coaching Carly Black on a CYO team, she was impressed with Black’s maturity.
“Whether you played with her or against her, you always knew who Carly Black was,” Tanner said. “She was always sincere – she’d always go over to the officials and say thank you. She knew how to win with grace. Everyone knew who she was because she was a gracious player.
“And this is when she was 10 years old!”
Mike O’Neill, the coach of her Black’s club soccer team, PDA Charge, has seen her play elite-level soccer against some of the best in the country. Yet he, too, points to a similar experience.
“She went to a PDP (Player Development Program) a couple weekends ago,” O’Neill said. “There were four college coaches there and after the program, even though she knows where she’s going to college, she still reached out to these coaches to say, ‘Thank you. Thank you for your time.’ To me, that speaks volumes.”
Some things just never change.
Another thing that never seems to change is that despite her tremendous successes both in high school and club volleyball and soccer, her coaches will heap praise upon Carly Black the person first and for longer than they will commend Carly Black the athlete (and they do quite a bit of that as well).
“Whatever she does in life, she’s going to do well,” Tanner said. “Whatever’s been put on her platter, she’s been able to take it and run with it. She’s a great role model. She’s always very composed. If I had all Carly Blacks on my team, life would be really easy. I feel like when I’m dealing with her, I’m dealing with a co-worker. I don’t feel like I’m talking with a kid. Sometimes you end up talking to her like an adult because she presents herself like an adult. She’s wise beyond her years.”
“I could talk for hours about Carly as a person,” O’Neill added. “I think she’s a very, very talented soccer player, but I think she’s a better person. She has the work ethic and she’s a good leader. And she’s thankful for everything that happens to her. One of the things I love most about her, even when she accomplishes something, she comes out and still works harder and harder.”
She’s been working hard for many years. Black first got involved in soccer around age 5 in the Horsham youth leagues. By the time she was 11, she was serious about the sport.
Over the years, Black has participated on travel teams and moved on to soccer camps, leagues and teams on a national and international stage. By the time she had entered high school, she had already accomplished more on the soccer pitch than many payers 10 years her senior.
“I knew I wanted to be serious about soccer when I was 11 or 12,” Black said. “I knew I was serious at 14. That was the year they started the call to National Pool, and that was the year I got called up. That’s when I knew I really wanted to play DI soccer and go to a good program.”
And all the while, her club teams in volleyball – a sport she began playing for social rather than competitive reasons – were making appearances at Nationals. And what had started out as fun became much more serious for Black.
“I went to St. Catherine of Siena for grade school,” she said. “I was in sixth grade, and I was playing soccer 24/7. I had a really good friend, and we didn’t get to hang out a lot outside of school. She was a volleyball player and she said, ‘Come play CYO volleyball and we’ll be able to hang out and talk.’ I signed up and went … I had no kneepads, I treated it as a social thing. We ended up winning the regional championship, and I really got into it and I tried out for the local club teams. It started out as a way to hang out with my friend, but I got really into it.”
Though she stopped playing club volleyball after ninth grade, the sport still held a place in her heart. She transferred to Hatboro-Horsham after spending her freshman year at Villa Joseph Marie and stepped onto the volleyball court as a sophomore in the fall and the soccer pitch in the spring.
The volleyball team advanced to states that season, an achievement Black calls one of her most prized memories of high school athletics, but when girls’ soccer was moved to the fall the following year, she decided to play soccer.
This year, Black had a crazy idea … despite soccer and volleyball both being played in the fall, she attempted to play both.
“We sat down with the coaches before seasons began and mapped out how I would be able to train for both and get to as many of both sports’ games as I could,” she said. “I think, the way we had it, I only ended up missing one or two games for each sport. There were some days where one was an afternoon game, one was a night game, so I would be able to get to both. So it seemed like it all worked out.”
A few weeks into the season, however, scheduling changes threw a wrench into the plan, and Black was asked to choose to focus on one sport.
Having already committed to West Virginia University to play soccer, Black decided on one last season in volleyball.
“I knew that once I go away to school, it’s going to be soccer 24/7 and that’s what I hope to play after school as well,” she said. “I would have no other chance to play volleyball at a high organized level, so I really wanted one more chance, and one more chance to make it back to states.
“I didn’t want to have to choose, I really had my mind set on playing both. I really wanted to have two Senior Nights with my best friends because I have really good friends on both teams. But overall, I am happy. I had a great volleyball year and I had a lot of fun my last season as a Hatter.”
She had a lot of success as well. The Hatters finished second in the American Conference with a 12-2 record (16-4 overall). Taking the 12th seed into the District One Playoffs, the Hatters upset fifth-ranked Garnet Valley in five games. Black had an eye-popping 21 kills and 23 digs in the victory.
“Winning that game was just as exciting as going to states,” Black said. “I really had a great senior season. It was a lot of fun and it was pretty exciting.”
Though the Hatters were eliminated in the next round, the season was still a huge success. And Tanner believes that Black played no small part in that success.
“It was amazing how everything came right back to her after being away,” Tanner said. “The thing that makes Carly so great as an athlete is that she has no fear. She’s going to do anything she can to win a game and it’s not just for her, it’s for her teammates. She really understands what it is to accomplish something for a team.
“Going into playoffs, we were the underdog, and we ended up beating a team we weren’t supposed to beat and it all had to do with everyone coming together. I give Carly a lot of credit for that because she was the glue that made everything stick. She’s been on more teams than anyone, her experience allowed her to share that knowledge and make it work for us. And her numbers were just incredible. During the playoffs, she was the best attacker, had the highest percentage attacking, the most number of kills, the highest passing rate, and was our MVP.”
She was also selected First Team All-League. And while she would have liked to have returned to the state tournament, she speaks of it not as a regret, but simply as a goal she had hoped and expected she would be able to help the team achieve.
And that’s one more factor that makes Black such an outstanding athlete – she is constantly looking to take her game, and her team, to the next level.
“Carly is all about making sure you’re always giving it your best,” Tanner said. “She’s not just a natural athlete, but a natural athlete who always pushes herself much further to accomplish her goals and reach her potential.”
“In soccer, you’re talking about a kid that was looked at under a different microscope from a lot of the other players because she’s an elite level player,” O’Neill said. “She always has a willingness to listen, an eagerness to improve
“Carly’s a kid that, when it gets tough, she rolls up her sleeves and figures it out. She has to look at herself in the mirror and know that she did her best.”
And as such, Black is always looking to get into the action. She’s not on the court or the field to be a spectator … whether it’s a club, high school or national-level team, she will do whatever is necessary to help her team win.
“I think I thrive in the pressure situations,” she said. “I’m the one who always wants to take the PK. When I was moved to center back, I enjoyed that the new position put more pressure on me. I’ve always felt that if you don’t put yourself in uncomfortable positions or pressure situations, or situations that make you have to be better, you’re not going to get any glory for yourself or your team. I enjoy having more pressure put on me.”
“Carly is a fierce competitor,” O’Neill said. “If the team ever falls behind, she’s looking at me like, ‘Put me up, I’ll get the goal.’ There’s a fire that burns inside of her to compete. I get a chance to see it every day, but I also see it in big moments. She figures out what we need to do to be successful and she wants to be a big piece of that.”
Black brings that drive and desire with her into the classroom as well. Ranked in the top 20 in her class with a GPA hovering right around 4.0, Black is a member of the National Honor Society and the highly selective Partnership Club, a service organization that travels into Philadelphia monthly to help at a homeless shelter.
“To get into the Partnership Club, you have to fill out an application and interview for it,” Black said. “I said that one of my reasons I wanted to do it was I don’t want to be labeled as ‘Carly the Athlete.’ I don’t ever want to be pegged into one thing. I try to get involved in the school in as many different areas as possible. It gives me a chance to meet so many different people that I wouldn’t have met if I didn’t do other activities.”
Black is also serving as the Vice President of the senior class, after serving as Secretary of her sophomore and junior classes.
All the sports and academics and extracurricular activities have resulted in Black making many sacrifices (particularly when it comes to sleep), but she said it’s all been worth it.
“At the time, it seemed like missing a dance was the end of the world, and not hanging out on weekends was awful,” Black said. “I missed three Thanksgivings, training camps for Regionals were the day after Christmas, so I wouldn’t stay with my family as long, I missed birthdays with training sessions.
"At the time they were hard, but I was one of the few kids who was doing this kind of stuff and traveling the country. Everywhere we’ve gone has been the result of whatever tournament I’m going to. I wouldn’t have had half the experiences I did or gone to half the places I’ve gone if it wasn’t for volleyball and soccer taking me there. Looking back now, I would do it all over again, 100 times.”
In July, Black will head to Morgantown to begin training for her freshman campaign at West Virginia as well as to take some summer courses to try to ease the pressure of her first year in college.
The Mountaineer women’s soccer program has won consecutive Big East crowns and has made a dozen consecutive appearances in the NCAA Tournament. The team is highly regarded in the school as well as the community, and it is followed by the locals much the same way professional teams are.
And if you think Black would be looking to dip her toe in the waters of college soccer, you’d be wrong. She’s ready to dive in head-first.
“There’s a saying in Morgantown that ‘Football is king but soccer is queen,’” Black said. “They treat their college team like a pro team. I’ve never seen a women’s soccer team with such a following.
“I wanted to go to a place where I can go in and make an impact. I feel like I can go in and make an immediate impact on the field as a freshman.”
Her coaches are certain she can make that impact … they’re certain she can do anything she puts her mind to. And they’re proud to have been associated with such an athlete.
“Carly is going to be a CFO or run an organization, she’s going to be a real leader in whatever she does in life,” Tanner said. “And I think it comes from what she’s learned on every playing field she’s ever been on. I couldn’t have asked for a better role model.”
“As a club coach, we all have families, and we spend a lot of time away from our families,” O’Neill said. “For me personally, coaching a player like Carly Black makes it a little bit easier because you know she cares so much.
“I’m so happy she’s going to West Virginia, because I think very highly of the soccer staff. But there’s also part of me that’s also disappointed … I don’t want anybody else to coach her. She helps create this environment that you really want to be a part of. She makes you want to be a better coach. She makes you want to be a better person.”
