Young Claire Gaber was tottering across the soccer field when she noticed her shoe. After stumbling, the 4-year-old girl looked down at her feet and noticed that the sole of her cleat had separated, flopping awkwardly under her with each step that she took. Alarmed, she hobbled to her father, the coach of her team.

“Dad, dad, my shoe!” she yelled, pointing down at her tattered cleats.

“Score three more goals and then I’ll take you out,” her father replied.

And she did.

Claire’s love for soccer outweighed everything else. After starting organized sports at 4, she continued to compete in countless teams over the years. Claire played soccer, basketball, track, cross country and volleyball. However, while she enjoyed every sport, soccer was where she found her true passion.

“I liked soccer the best, no matter what,” Claire said.

She started playing soccer to follow in her older sister’s footsteps. They played the same position, often competing together on the field. Ever since she was young, Claire dreamed of playing soccer for years to come alongside her older sister.

“We just imagined that they’d say, ‘The Gaber sisters scored another goal!” Claire said.

Claire remained committed to soccer, joining increasingly difficult teams to challenge herself. When she was 10, she tried out for the Olympic Development Program, which trains select athletes from each age group to compete internationally. She made it onto the age group two years above her. After achieving this, Claire couldn’t stop envisioning the possibilities ahead of her–playing high school soccer, then college soccer and maybe even professional. But she never envisioned that her dreams would be jeopardized in only a few years.

“I just kept wanting more and more,” Claire said.

Her mother, Nicky Gaber, said Claire’s dedication made her a role model to her teammates, because she wasn’t the type to give up.

“They’d be losing and she’d be like, ‘No, we could still win this,’” Nicky said.

And even when her team did lose, Claire stayed positive. After all, that’s not what was most important to her. What was important was playing the game.

“She cared about the wins and the losses,” Nicky said. “But she’d rather be playing and lose than not play at all.”

• • •

Claire suffered her first concussion during eighth grade basketball practice. After misinterpreting a play, Claire and her teammate mistakenly ran in the same direction, ramming into each other headfirst.

Ringing drowned Claire’s ears for what felt like forever. Lying face up on the court, she was filled with a sense of stunned fear. Her vision was spinning and her mind was blank.

“It was such a blur,” Claire said.

She was quickly sent to the nurse’s office, where her mother was called to pick her up. Claire was told by her doctor that she had a concussion and should rest her brain as much as possible, avoiding schoolwork and sports in order to minimize her symptoms. When she did return to school, she struggled to focus.

“I was so out of it, I was so delirious,” Claire said. “My teachers would be like, ‘Just go home, you’re not learning anything.’”

Despite the scare of the injury, Claire was cleared to return to soccer two months after the concussion. This quick return would ultimately play a part in ending her soccer career for good.

Claire’s final soccer game was one of the last games of the season. She was almost finished with the school year, and prepared herself to move on to high school soccer. In the middle of the game, a player bumped into her, causing Claire to fall and hit her head lightly on the ground. Instantly, the ringing started all over again. She knew exactly what was wrong. Though she was in shock, she knew the team needed her. So she blew it off and continued to play.

“It’s really scary honestly to see how quickly something else that has impacted you can make that much of a difference,” Claire said.

Her parents were scared. They told Claire that if the injury turned out to be a concussion, she would have to find another sport to play; soccer was simply too risky. So she delayed seeing a doctor in fear. A couple days passed before the symptoms became unbearable. Before long, Claire visited her doctor, who confirmed the family’s worries – another concussion. Claire’s parents determined that she could no longer play soccer.

“It’s one thing to break your arm, you know,” Nicky said. “But this is something that could affect her for the rest of her life. I mean your brain is more important than your love of the sport, plain and simple.”

Claire was devastated. She didn’t want to let go of her goals. She wanted to be out on the field. Frustrated with her lack of control over the situation, she found it hard to accept her new reality.

“It’s not like I wasn’t good enough or I failed, just I couldn’t do it,” Claire said. “I always felt like I overcame anything that would come to me, and I couldn’t overcome this.”

While soccer was no longer an option, her parents didn’t want to take away sports completely. They knew how big of a change it would be for Claire.

“She loves her friends and she loves school, but not like soccer,” Nicky said. “So we wanted her to develop another passion.”

So they began to suggest non-contact sports. They brought up swimming, but Claire hated it. It was too late to start gymnastics. And at first, when her father suggested tennis, she refused. But after thinking it over, she decided to try it.

She convinced a close friend to join her. Because both were unsure of which sport to do in high school, they took it as a learning experience. The two practiced diligently over the summer, determined to master the new sport. They tried out for JV together in freshman year and both made the team.

Then after only having a year’s experience in the sport, Claire was able to skip JV1 and make the varsity tennis team as a sophomore.

“This proves that I started from nothing and I got this far already,” Claire said.

While she misses soccer and the friends she made while playing, Claire admitted that starting over only gave her more opportunities.

“I’m able to do this just in a short amount of time, so who knows what’s going to be out there,” Claire said.