Team Player: Laurie Nosbusch

Photo by Bryce Richter

UW sophomore Laurie Nosbusch wasted little time making an impact on the women’s soccer program. In her 2008 freshman season, she secured a starting spot at forward, led the team in scoring with twenty-one points, and was named to the Great Lakes Region All-Freshman team.

She’s also notching her place on another Badger team. Father Keith ’74 and brother David ’08 are both graduates of UW-Madison’s electrical engineering department, and mother Jane ’76 and sister Carolyn ’06 earned degrees from the School of Nursing. But Laurie is breaking (slightly) new ground with a tentative pre-med and Spanish double major. “I’m choosing a different major, since they’ve apparently paired off,” she says with a laugh.

Before arriving on campus, the Mequon, Wisconsin, native honed her soccer skills with the highly competitive FC Milwaukee club program and as a member of the U.S. under-eighteen national team, an experience Nosbusch says she will never forget. “As far as proudest achievements,” she says, “that would have to be it. Putting on a U.S. jersey was really something special.”

Heading into last season, the Badger women had not had a winning record in two years, and Nosbusch knew it would be a rebuilding year. While the Badgers fell just short of a winning record, she helped lead the young team to an improved 9-9-1 overall record and to within one victory of qualifying for the Big Ten tournament, a main goal for the team as it prepares for the 2009 campaign.

“The core from [last] year’s team was young,” says Nosbusch, who was one of thirteen freshmen on the 2008 team, “but we’re on the upswing now. We’ll add the incoming freshmen to our moving train soon, and our goals are only getting bigger and bigger from here on out.”

Published in the Summer 2009 issue