PORT ANGELES — Paxton Rodocker has signed her name thousands of times.
But it was different when she was signing a letter of intent to play soccer at Mississippi Valley State University.
“I was so excited, I thought my signature was going to come out crooked,” Rodocker said.
The Peninsula College sophomore and 2012 graduate of Port Angeles High School signed to play her last two seasons of college soccer for the Devilettes on Wednesday.
Mississippi Valley State is an NCAA Division I school located in Itta Bena, Miss.
Among the school’s notable athletic achievements is producing NFL Hall of Famers Jerry Rice and Deacon Jones.
It’s a long way from Port Angeles to Jerry Rice’s alma mater.
And it isn’t easy to get from the Olympic Peninsula to the Division I level.
“It feels like I’m doing what I’ve wanted to do since I was little,” Rodocker said.
“Being from Port Angeles, you don’t always get the opportunities, don’t always get to play club soccer.
“I got my soccer from the city league.”
Rodocker has taken full advantage of Port Angeles’ limited opportunities, and is proof that one doesn’t need to play for premier teams and in elite tournaments to get noticed.
“It’s a cool story,” Port Angeles girls soccer coach Scott Moseley, who coached Rodocker in high school and a couple of years prior to that, said.
“It really was a local, nontraditional route that she took.
“She really is a home-grown player — youth soccer, high school, college.”
The secret to her success, Rodocker admits, isn’t so secret. She has always been a good player, but at each level she has always had to become even better.
“For anybody who wants — not only girls, guys, too — if you want to move on to the next level, you have to put in the work,” she said.
“It’s not going to just come to you. If you don’t put in the work, you’re not going to get there. It’s so cliche, but it’s so true.
“If I didn’t put in the time lifting and putting in extra cardio, I don’t think I would be here.
“The work is so much more important than, ‘Yeah, I’m good, I’m going to go in.’
“It’s the extra work, like the extra inch.”
She knows of which she speaks. Soccer success hasn’t been handed to Rodocker.
For instance, she didn’t make the Port Angeles varsity team her freshman year.
Undeterred, she went on be named All-Peninsula Girls Soccer co-MVP her senior year in 2012, sharing it with friend and teammate Kathryn Moseley.
Peninsula College women’s coach Kanyon Anderson saw Rodocker play during her sophomore season at Port Angeles and knew then that she would be a player he would recruit.
And he did. But then he made her redshirt her first year at Peninsula.
“She really didn’t like that,” Anderson said. “She’s always been the big fish in the big pond, always one of the best players.
“I felt the potential was much greater than where she was at.”
Rodocker agrees that redshirting helped her become a better player.
“At first, I was really upset about it,” she said. “But I said, I’m going to help teammates get to where they want to go, and next year it will be my turn.”
She also changed positions while at Peninsula from defense to a holding midfield.
And by the end of her sophomore season with the Pirates this past fall, Rodocker was picked for the NWAC All-Star team.
So Rodocker has gone from high school junior varsity and junior college redshirt to the Southwestern Athletic Conference.
“That speaks for her character, in both situations, that she didn’t just say, ‘Well that’s that,’” Scott Moseley said.
“She’s always worked really hard to get to where she’s at. She’s always battled hard to get better.
“I use that a lot. I tell girls that are on JV, it doesn’t mean the end of the road — look at Paxton Rodocker.”
Rodocker said she had her own Port Angeles role model: Liz Money, who signed her own Division I letter of intent with Oregon State after her senior season with the Roughriders in 2002.
Rodocker later played with Money in indoor leagues, and said Money would give her tips on how to get better, things such as defensive positioning.
“She said, ‘I can see you at a Division II school, with how good you are,’” Rodocker said.
“I thought: She went D-I, so I can, too.”
Even after all of her work and improvement, Rodocker still had to create her own Division I opportunity.
Mississippi Valley State women’s soccer coach N. Fabio Boateng didn’t come to her. Rodocker served as her own recruiting service and went to him.
Last month, using College Navigator, an online school-student matchmaker, she typed in the criteria she was looking for in a school.
One of those criteria was region. Mississippi actually fit into her preferences because she has family in Florida, Alabama and Louisiana.
A few schools popped up as results to her requirements.
Rodocker sent emails to coaches at those schools and sent them video of the second half of Peninsula’s game against Shoreline this past September. (“It was like my perfect game,” Rodocker said.)
The Mississippi Valley State coaches replied to her that day.
Rodocker later talked with one of the team’s captains, Haley Hendricks.
“She said, ‘Honestly we’re going win SWAC championship next year,” Rodocker said.
“We’re working our butts off to get it done next year.
“I want to jump in and make a difference. To hear her say we’re going to win the SWAC, it makes me feel so much more confident because we have the same goal.”
Mississippi Valley State finished sixth in the SWAC this past season, Boateng’s first as head coach, with a 4-3-3 conference record.
The Devilettes’ season ended with a 2-0 loss in the conference tournament to Alabama State, which features Shelbi Vienna-Hallam, who was Rodocker’s teammate for two years at Peninsula.
Anderson and Moseley say that in Rodocker, Mississippi Valley State is getting a smart player with a strong, accurate leg.
And also someone who doesn’t shy away from contact.
“I like hitting people. I love the physical aspect of the game,” Rodocker said.
“When you hit somebody and you see them on the ground, it’s a good feeling.”
Rodocker also will be more focused that SWAC championship than on racking up points and assists.
“Somebody cam up to me this year and said, ‘You could be getting a lot more assists and a lot more goals,’” Rodocker said.
“But I also don’t mind starting the play that leads to the goal.
“I’m not a stats person. If we win, what else could you want?”
Rodocker plans to head for the South in July to get acclimated to the weather before the soccer season begins in August.
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Sports Editor Lee Horton can be reached at 360-417-3525 or at lhorton@peninsuladailynews.com.
