Bella Sember: There's a Story to Tell

Bella Sember reflects a character without a stereotypical story, an enigma described by the head coach of the Women’s soccer team, Anson Dorrance as just a really nice girl. But the thing about stories is most of them are unheard, they lay dormant in the minds of their speakers till they choose to speak it. Sember to Dorrance is the perfect student, a technical savant who always arrives at training with a smile on her face, yet behind the elaborate demeanour hides a journey plagued with imperfections.

Sember sits in front of an audience, her feet quaver playfully as she settles herself after a practice out in the sun. She ties up her ponytail whirling it effortlessly into a sports bun and wipes the freckles of sweat that rest upon her forehead.

“I’m nervous,” Bella says.

A story is expected from her. For possibly the first time during her 3-year career here at the University of North Carolina, Sember sits as the representative of this women’s soccer powerhouse, the Ally Sentnors and Alessia Russo’s of the world have departed to pastures new and a transfer epidemic has left only 12 players in the locker room, only 5 of which are healthy. Reinforcements in training arrive in the form of the men’s club soccer team here at Chapel Hill – offering contest to remnants of a program that made it to the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament last fall. The idea of the opposition being the opposite gender pokes at the genetics debacle but to Sember, it was nothing to write home about.

“Right up until I came here, I was still playing with the boys. So, it's nothing new,” Sember says. “The first time I played with girls was in high school, with girls it sounds weird to say this but they're a lot more physical. Pushier, like more contact, so girls like me, I rely on my technical ability more than my physical ability.”

After her audience with us is finished, Sember will return home to an email dystopian in nature. GPS trackers worn during the training session will unearth a plethora of data from the number of sprints everyone has done, to their performances in shooting and dribbling drills.

They were delivered to her inbox as a ranking, best to worst.

Hunger games like trumpets sound off in her head as Sember usually finds herself near the bottom in physical and heading drills, but the technical side of the game is where Sember reigns supreme probably imbued into her genetically as both Sember’s parents were former soccer players.

Family outings were different in the Sember household, Sember and her siblings would watch admirably from the crowds at their parents’ games – a love for the game transmitting at every final whistle. Matches would finish late in Centerport, New York forcing the family to eat dinner in the car, a reminiscent memory.

A drive for the game was cultivated in Sember, determination to let her parents watch on with admiring eyes akin to her she did them fuelled a passion to improve. Her mother dreamed of playing at UNC, helping Sember she would take her along to a wall at her school in the early hours of the morning – a monolith superimposed to throw everything she threw at it right back.

“I'll take 100 shots on my left,” Sember says, “that’s my weaker foot or was my weaker foot at the time. And then 100 shots on my right foot and I would do that every single day before school.”

“I've always been super competitive. I think that's how a lot of us are on the team.”

Harborfields, the school Sember graduated from is one of the best in the county with its sports programs being particularly heralded. Its Wikipedia page sports some heavy hitter alumni: Ultimate Fighting Champion fighter Matt Frevola, Olympic Medallist Sara Whalen and most famous of all the Christmas queen herself, Mariah Carey. Absent from that list is Belle Sember, her story yet to be punctured into the anecdotal records of Harborfields. Her story here at UNC has not fully prospered enough to propel her to the Wikipedia Hall of Fame.

Sember exits the room. In her place, Coach Dorrance of the UNC Women’s soccer team takes her place. The air in the room tightens with history, a confident demeanour perpetuates from the seat in front of us. Anson Dorrance’s eyes tell the tale of 1000 stories waiting to be heard in full. A question is asked.

“If somebody says to you what is Bella Sember’s story, what’s a story of hers that would pop out to you what would it be?”

The storied eyes flicker in thought as though sifting through an encyclopaedia of adages that tell the tale of his player's past and present. A pause in thought encroaches on the face of the most winningest coach in NCAA history, “I don't have it. I don't know what the story is.” Dorrance says.

Sember is a Junior at Chapel Hill entering her final season, she’s accumulated 55 appearances but only started once. “Sember is one of the most technical players in this team and has been for 3 years,” Dorrance says.

“Shooting, trapping the ball, dribbling and she can beat anyone off the dribble but where she could improve to get drafted and I know she can is to be fitter and score goals.”

With every story comes a crescendo, an ardent concentration of problems that challenges the protagonist to fail or flourish.

The email that sits in Sember’s inbox routinely puts her at the top of the technical testing, but she finds herself meandering at the bottom of most fitness rankings. Such a stat played a role in being a proponent for Sember’s lack of starts and consistent involvement in the main team.

“I feel like my fitness has always been kind of used against me,” Bella says as she returns to her seat. “It's always kind of been in the back of my mind of like, what could I have accomplished if they decided to just play me anyway?”

“I'm really glad that they didn't because I think if I had been kind of like-handed, like a starting role, or even like a reserve role, I don't think I would get to the level of player that I am right now.”

Those years as a reserve did plague Sember, she notes her father making the 7-hour drive from New York to come to see her as a pressure valve, a moment of calm in this fast-paced game of life.

“I think my dad knows more about what has gone here for me than probably anyone. He’s a former player so he’s able to talk to me and understand where I’m coming from,” Sember says.

UNC alumnus and number 1 overall pick in the 2023 National Women’s Soccer League draft, Ally Sentnor is also someone she confided in during those moments.

“Me and her are super close and we talk every day. She knows everything about me as well. Everyone on the team is my friend, but not everyone knows. Like, I wouldn't always confide in everyone.”

Now entering her final collegiate season, Sember decided to stay put, the option to transfer for a more consistent role was always there but it just isn’t who she is.

“I have had some friends who have had similar experiences as me and have decided to transfer. So not saying that was a bad decision because I'm sure that they're happy. But I also think I had every opportunity to just kind of give up and be like this isn't the place for me or just kind of settled into the background. And I think that I was able to kind of pick myself back up when nobody even knew and get myself to where I wanted to be.”

“I'm still not there yet.”

The crescendo has passed and now presents the chance for Sember to write her story and embellish her legacy into UNC and Harborfields folklore, she believes it and Coach Dorrance feels the same way handing her captaincy for the spring semester, a selection he hopes to keep the same for the upcoming fall season.

“I guess I don't have a story about her, but I do have a feeling about her,” Dorrance says.

“I think she's a very sweet, thoughtful and warm human being, and to not have a story about her might be a good thing.”

END