Medina County Sports Hall of Fame: Soccer set foundation for who Becca Candler is today

Becca Candler is 32 now, a wife, mother and successful commercial real estate consultant for Deloitte. She lives in Houston, a long way from her Medina High and Indiana University soccer roots, but the sport continues to have a huge impact on her life. Not because she helped the Bees to a Division I state championship in 2009 or still holds the top two season assist totals in Indiana history, but because of what she learned and the friends she made while kicking a ball. "Where do I even start?" said Candler, who will be inducted into the Medina County Sports Hall of Fame during a June 14 banquet at the Galaxy Conference Center in Wadsworth. "Being a part of a team, it's so common in sports, but bigger picture it's so important in life, whether it's work, family or friends. "Knowing how to love people, talk to them, work with them, compromise with them is so important. Soccer allowed me to learn how to be a better person, essentially, and that's what life is about." Married to former Indiana wrestler and fellow finance major Cheney Dale — that is her legal last name now — and the mother of daughters Sloane, 3, and Elowen, who will turn 1 on Sunday, Candler still keeps in touch with many of her former teammates and coaches. Parents Brett and Barb Candler now live in South Carolina, so she doesn't get back to the Medina area too often — she will make the trip from Houston for the hall of fame banquet — but Candler's soccer teammates are still her best friends. Though scattered across the country, they attend one another's weddings, share parenting tips and occasionally relive their glory days on the pitch through group chats. "Being out of sports for a while and looking back at the relationships you make on the field, they are so strong and authentic and true," Candler said. "It's hard to make relationships that compare to that. The blood, sweat and tears you go through, it's hard to replicate that in a job. "When we interact, it's like no time has passed. My class from Indiana, we're all having kids, weddings. It's so cool to be close to those people." When Candler arrived in Bloomington for Indiana's 2010 season, she was one of 11 incoming freshmen, including nine from Ohio. The Hoosiers went 6-12-1 in both 2010 and 2011, then improved to 9-9-1 and finally to 15-7-1 in 2013, when they reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament. More impressive, all 11 players graduated from Indiana, with four staying at the school for five years. With that type of continuity and the closeness that developed from practicing with and against one another, a bond developed that now goes well beyond soccer. "What was special about our class is that we all bought in," said defender Lara Ross, whose married name is Waters. "We wanted to do better. The first two years we struggled and didn't win many games. "For someone like Becca, who was used to winning, going into a program that is not winning is really frustrating, but we turned it around our last year, made it to the second round of the NCAA Tournament and broke a lot of team records." The 5-foot-9 Candler, whose 10 assists as a junior and nine as a senior remain the top two marks at Indiana, finished her four-year career with 10 goals and 20 assists for 40 points, which ranks 12th in program history. Her career assist total is second in Indiana history and her 80 games played are tied for third, but that's not what her teammates remember most. "She was always fun to be around, but she also always had this, 'You don't want to mess with Becca' attitude," said midfielder Lisa Nouanesengsy, whose married name is Meister. "You knew she had your back. She was always so competitive." Friendly, cooperative and a frequent deflector of praise for the things she could do with a soccer ball, Candler's personality was different once the whistle blew. "Becca is subtly the most determined player I know," Ross said. "She does not like to lose or be second. She has a grit about her. She doesn't act that way, but as a defender I saw that side of her. She could pull a jersey without the referee seeing it. "She was a great teammate, she's still a great friend and I'm so glad I got to play with her and didn't have to play against her." IT CAME TO BEE An only child, Candler lived in Hudson, Wis., located about 30 miles east of Minneapolis, until her family moved to Medina prior to the start of her first-grade year. Almost immediately, her parents signed her up with the Medina Soccer Association. "I remember it being so much fun," Candler said. "It was like a beehive. Everyone moved wherever the ball was. There was a lot of chaos." Tall and fast, it didn't take long for her youth coaches to see she was an athlete, and Candler continued to stand out as she progressed through the ranks. Her dream was to be like Medina High players Paige Maxwell (Ohio State) and Kellyn Flanagan (Wisconsin) and one day play for the Bees. "Medina had such a good culture in girls soccer," Candler said. "It was something I always strived for." There was never much doubt that would happen. Candler, who finished her four-year career with the Bees with 45 goals and 30 assists, verbally committed to play soccer at Indiana when she was a Medina freshman. "Becca was a game-changer," said Doug Coreno, Candler's coach her final two years at Medina and currently the head of the boys program. "She was such a force on the field, the type of kid that opposing coaches had to know where she was every minute of every play. She was so special. "Becca was a pure goal-scorer, but she also was extremely unselfish and had great field vision. When players would swarm her, she was more than willing to take a touch or two to draw the pressure and then distribute." The Bees were extremely successful in Candler's first three seasons, but each year they lost in the semifinals of the insanely rugged Brunswick District, where soccer powers Walsh Jesuit, Strongsville and Hudson also competed. "Expectations were always really high with our team because of the volume of talent," she said. "We had so many upperclassmen committed to big schools you would have thought, 'They're going to make it really far,' but there were always hurdles in our way." With one opportunity left as seniors, Candler and her classmates were determined to capitalize, but the 2009 season didn't start well. Medina lost 1-0 to Strongsville early on and then tied Westerville North, a team that had nowhere near as much talent. On the bus ride back from the latter game, Coreno met individually with each player. "He had such strong and established relationships with us that he felt comfortable enough to hold us accountable when he knew we could do more, be more and compete at a higher level," Candler said. "He's such a nice person with a bubbly personality, but there's a competitive side ingrained in him. He was the perfect person to take over a girls team. He was a big reason and factor in our success." What Coreno said to each player on that bus ride home isn't that important. What's important is that his message resonated. From that point, a Medina team that had Taylor Burke in goal and a number of other star players, including Sarah Flanders and Jillian Graff, outscored its opponents 62-2, including 29-0 in the postseason. "The only way to describe it is we were in sync as a team," Candler said. "There isn't one player who stood out. We were solid from goalie to defense to midfield to attack. There were no holes or weak spots and everything just came together." There were, however, some close calls. The Bees needed overtime to beat Cloverleaf 1-0 in the district semifinals, setting up a rematch with Strongsville in the district final. This time, Medina rolled to a 4-0 victory. "That's one of the few games I have vivid memories from, just because we were so close with all those (Strongsville) girls," Candler said. "We played club together from the age of 10 on, so that was a personal victory for us. "I remember our parents went out with brooms and sandbags to repair the field, because it had rained a lot. It was a culture and environment that was unmatched. I never felt that type of support at the college level or after. It was euphoric." That Medina would win its two regional games was a foregone conclusion, as the winner of the Brunswick District seemingly always cruised into the state semifinals, and that's exactly what happened. That set up a state semifinal meeting with powerful Walsh Jesuit, which remains one of the most memorable games in Medina girls soccer history. "Oh, my gosh, the Walsh game," Candler said. "It was at Rocky River and it was freezing. It was on outdated turf and the ball moved so fast. In the first half, I didn't even touch the ball. Walsh attacked Taylor Burke for 40 minutes." Burke met every challenge, and a game that could have been 3-0 or 4-0 at halftime was still 0-0. "She was unreal, like a superhero," Candler said. "Her feet weren't even on the ground. I can't imagine the adrenaline she was feeling, because I was feeling it myself and I wasn't even involved in the game." Finally, more than midway through the second half, the ball landed at Candler's feet. Head down, she barreled her way to just outside the 18-yard box and shot with her left foot. "It took a lucky bounce under the goalie and skidded in," she said of the only goal scored in the game. "It was pretty lucky." Burke, whose married name is Gilman, didn't see it that way. "It was our saving grace," she said. "We just needed a goal. I almost never ran up to hug a person who scored a goal, but I did that time." After getting a huge send-off as their bus went around Medina Public Square, the Bees traveled to Crew Stadium in Columbus and throttled Dublin Coffman 4-0 in the state championship game. "There was a lot of buildup," Candler said. "Then the reality set in that we still had to play 80 minutes. We had exhausted a lot of energy just getting there, and the first 10 to 15 minutes were really aggressive. I remember feeling exhausted. "Then Sarah Flanders hit a shot and it was the best feeling ever. From there on out, there were zero doubts. We were playing on instinct and we had so much fun." Candler finished the year with 18 goals and 13 assists, earned All-Ohio and All-America honors and was named Gazette MVP. "We just had a special group and Becca was the one leading the charge," said Burke, a junior on that team. "I had arguably the best seat in the house to watch her perform." OFF TO INDIANA Candler had scholarship offers to play soccer at Alabama, UCLA and the University of California, Berkeley, but there was never a doubt she was headed to a Big Ten school, as her mom graduated from Wisconsin and her dad from Indiana. She chose Indiana largely because of Mick Lyon, her coach for three seasons before he resigned due to increased health complications resulting from multiple sclerosis. Candler had one goal and one assist as a freshman and also played a lot as a sophomore, but the Hoosiers weren't very good, going 2-8 and 2-9 in the Big Ten in those seasons. "It was challenging," she said. "On the bright side, I got to start, so that was really cool. I knew I was growing despite a less than stellar record." The Hoosiers improved to 4-7 in the Big Ten in Lyon's final season and everything came together in 2013, when Amy Berbary took over as coach and Indiana went 6-1 in league play and beat DePaul in the first round of the NCAA Tournament before losing to powerful North Carolina. "Becca had a lot of assists, and I feel like they were always to me," Nouanesengsy said. "She would take on defenders and do the scissors move and then pass the ball. Every time I was on the field, I wanted her to be out there with me." Candler started learning the scissors move — using one foot to circle around the ball and then taking the ball in the opposite direction with the other foot — when she was 12 at the urging of Cleveland Futbol Club coach Joe Salem. "He told his players you need a signature move you can go to when you don't know what else to do," she said. "It became almost automatic. From the age of 12 until I stopped playing, I used it all the time." LIFE AFTER SOCCER After earning a finance degree in 2014, Candler spent two years working crazy hours in Chicago. She was making good money, but something was missing. Cheney Dale, now her husband and then her boyfriend, told her she had a decision to make. "I had lost my identity as a soccer player, and I wasn't ready for that," Candler said. "He said, 'If you're going to do this you need to do it now.' He supported my decision to go and try out for a random professional soccer team just to see how it would go. I made it on a whim." That was in 2016 with the Seattle Reign, where Candler also had the opportunity to visit with Lyon, who had moved to the Pacific Northwest when he resigned as coach at Indiana. Candler wasn't paid while with the Reign — she stayed with a host family — and didn't play much, but it's an experience she wouldn't trade for anything, as her teammates included soccer greats Megan Rapinoe and Hope Solo. "It felt like a dream," she said. "It didn't feel real. I look back at it now and it was so challenging but so rewarding that I'm really glad I did it." Candler ended up tearing her ACL in July 2016, bringing her soccer career to an end, but something much better happened while she was in Seattle: She got engaged in March 2016 and was married in October 2017. "He's the best person," she said of her husband. "He's everything I'm not, so outgoing, so social." Then she laughed, aware of what she was about to say next: "He's like a Golden Retriever. That's the best way to describe him. He has the best heart and he's so loyal." That makes Cheney Dale a lot like Candler's parents, who did anything and everything to allow her to pursue her dreams. "It makes me emotional," she said while choking back tears. "The sacrifices they made for me are endless. They were so supportive and so encouraging through the good and the bad. They believed in me more than anyone else, and that gave me confidence in myself. They were everything. They still are." Contact Rick Noland at (330) 721-4046 or rnoland@medina-gazette.com. Follow him @RickNoland on X.