Editor’s note: In May, the Robbinsville Advance celebrated its 10th anniversary by featuring people from its past. Throughout the next year, the Advance will continue to catch up with those who have graced our pages since May 2008. This month’s subject is soccer star Laura Greb, a 2009 graduate of Robbinsville High.
Laura Greb’s southern accent betrays where she’s been since leading the Robbinsville High School girls’ soccer team to its first state championship.
After scoring two goals in Robbinsville’s 3-0 win over Waldwick for the Group I crown in November 2008, Greb continued her playing career at Western Carolina University, and now remains in North Carolina teaching, coaching soccer and still playing.
“I play a lot,” said Greb in an understatement. She plays on three different teams in Asheville, North Carolina: a co-ed team, a women’s team and a men’s team. It translates overall into a game every Friday and two every Sunday.
“I’ve been playing since I moved here,” Greb said. “I moved to Asheville knowing zero people. A teacher at my first job said, ‘I hear you play soccer, do you want to join an adult league team?’ I’ve met so many people through that league.”
Greb ramped up her play in May after making the city’s new semipro team, the Asheville City Soccer Club of the Women’s Premier Soccer League. Asheville City travels to play games against teams from North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.
“It’s pretty much a summer league for kids who are still in college so they have the opportunity to continue playing in the summer,” Greb said. “I was pretty surprised that I made it. I’m going to be like an old lady on the team.”
Greb is also looking forward to the Robbinsville High Class of 2009 10-year reunion that is in the planning stages. It will give her a chance to come home to Robbinsville and reminisce about the state title run that highlighted her athletic career. Greb, who also played a couple years of basketball, ran winter track one season and played four years of lacrosse, still thinks back to the run the Ravens put together.
“What I’ll never forget is that we were already such great friends before even being in high school and playing together there,” Greb said. “We played together through middle school at Pond Road and a majority of us played on the same travel team so we were already really good friends for the most part. There were some girls that played on other teams that played on the high school team. That’s what I liked about high school, you played with some of your other friends that might not be your age and might not be with you during travel soccer, and it’s cool to play with everyone and represent your school. That was obviously my favorite part. Winning was great, but getting to play with your friends and have fun was the best part. It wasn’t as serious as travel. It was a lot more laid back and fun.”
The Class of 2009 is active on their own Facebook page, which has been a good way for Greb to keep tabs on former classmates and teammates. She doesn’t get home too often between her work and soccer, but has tried to connect with Casey McGuigan, who was co-captain of the girls soccer team, when she is around.
“I still talk to her every now and then,” Greb said. “I don’t get back to New Jersey too much, but when I do, I always do try to text her at least to see if we can get together.”
Greb played travel year-round for Princeton Soccer Club, always with the goal of playing college soccer. She committed to Western Carolina in her junior year, and headed south after closing her three-year Robbinsville career with 50 goals and 29 assists, including 22 goals and 12 assists in her senior season. (It was only three years because the school didn’t have a varsity term in her freshman year.) In college, the dynamic forward finished in the top two for Western Carolina in goals or points over each of her final three seasons.
“It was amazing,” Greb said. “When I first got there, it was definitely a culture shock. Western Carolina is way out in the middle of nowhere. It’s very much of a college town. If Western wasn’t there, there wouldn’t be much. It didn’t really affect me too much in the beginning being so far away from home, being over 500 miles from home because I was so busy with soccer. I knew it was going to be hard. They weren’t kidding, when I was being recruited they said if you decide to play D-I soccer, it’s going to be like a full-time job. It absolutely was.”
Greb excelled on the soccer field and off it. Her 3.76 GPA in the fall of her senior year earned her Academic All-Southern Conference.
“It was awesome,” Greb said. “I loved my time there, which is obvious since I stayed for grad school and I helped out with the soccer team for a year.”
After graduating from WCU with a degree in health and physical education in 2013, she earned her master’s degree from WCU in just three semesters and during her first year in the master’s program, fresh out of college, she served as a graduate assistant for WCU.
“Working with the two coaches I played for, Chad Miller and Todd Herman, they were awesome to work with,” Greb said. “To see the other side of it was really fun, too. I know that they enjoyed having me there during that time. I was kind of a bridge from the players to the coaches. If the girls wanted to tell something to Chad and Todd, but they didn’t want to tell them, they’d talk to me. It was really cool. The players respected my change of role, and there was never a conflict of interest which some people may think. I knew Chad and Todd knew it wouldn’t be a problem. It was awesome to see that side of it and get some experience.”
In her second year in grad school, she started to move toward teaching with a part-time job at an area school. She moved to full-time upon graduation in December 2014, when she was already living in Asheville. The next year, she started her current job as seventh and eighth grade health and physical education teacher at North Buncombe Middle School in Weaverville, just north of Asheville. She is finishing her third year with every intention of staying for the long term.
“I love this school,” Greb said. “It’s a great community, great teachers, great administration. I’m happy I ended up here for sure.”
She is doing what she always envisioned. She left Robbinsville with the plan that she would get into teaching.
“I always knew, even when I was younger,” Greb said. “My neighbor growing up, her mom was a PE teacher. I wanted to be a PE teacher because it was my favorite class. I loved PE class.”
She also coaches. North Carolina plays girls’ soccer in the spring, and she coaches the middle school girls at North Buncombe on top of coaching a travel team, Highland Football Club, in the fall. She pulls on her own playing experiences, as well as coaching at camps and in college.
“I think coaching the middle school was more of a challenge for me, as opposed to what I’ve already coached in the past,” Greb said. “I’ve coached very competitive travel teams and college teams. I get to the middle school, and I have girls that don’t even know how to kick a soccer ball now, and I have to rewind. I think coaching the middle school team has made me a better coach to my other teams. It’s really challenged me to figure out how to simplify certain things that might be obvious for someone who’s been playing soccer forever, but I have girls who just started playing last year. It was new and difficult, and it definitely challenged me as a coach.
“It’s definitely a more relaxed atmosphere,” she said. “You’re still trying to teach skills. It’s more so teaching them the love of the game rather than turning these girls that haven’t played soccer into incredible soccer players in two months. Their season is so short. You get two games a week and you barely get time to practice. It’s more developing them to understand the rules and feel confident enough that if they can go play somewhere and they don’t feel uncomfortable kicking a soccer ball around.”
Greb has stayed comfortable on the pitch herself. Since graduating from Western Carolina, she has remained an active player and is getting in shape for the big challenge of starting to play in the semipro league.
“It’ll definitely be competitive,” she said. “I’m really excited and looking forward to it.”
Laura Greb (center) was dominant for the Robbinsville girls’ soccer team in 2008, leading the Ravens to the state title. (File photo by Rob Anthes.)Laura Greb (center) was dominant for the Robbinsville girls’ soccer team in 2008, leading the Ravens to the state title. (File photo by Rob Anthes.),
