If you were to ask senior Mason McLean in elementary school what he wanted to be when he grew up, he would’ve only had one answer.

“Everyone wanted to be police or a firefighter,” he said “I just wanted to be a soccer player.”

McLean has been kicking the ball around since he was five or six years old, when his dad — who played soccer at Gonzaga University — enrolled him in Lil’ Kickers, an indoor, introductory program for kids between the age of 18 months and nine years old.

“He got me into the sport,” he said. “I was passing with him on the sidewalk ever since I was a little kid.” 

That love for the game has carried McLean far beyond that sidewalk by his house. Now, he’s committed to play Division III soccer for Pacific Lutheran University (PLU), thus joining The Falconer’s Next Level Seniors series, which profiles seniors who plan to play their sports at the collegiate level.

While McLean also enjoyed playing CYO basketball in middle school, his heart was set on the soccer field.

“Soccer is always my number one sport,” he said.

That devotion has carried him through years of club soccer, which he transitioned to after Little Kickers — from Saints Soccer Academy, where he started out as center midfielder, to Portland City United (PCU) Club, where he eventually settled as centerback. It’s a position that puts him directly between the opposing team and his own goalkeeper, which suits him, he said. 

“Centerback is my favorite,” he said. “It’s just like the last line of defense.”

What soccer has always provided McLean is a chance to get away from it all, something that he said keeps him coming back to the sport time and time again. 

“When you’re playing, you don’t need to worry about anything,” he said. “It’s an escape away from school and all the pressures of life. I get to just go out there and be myself on the field.”

When it came time to choose a high school, soccer factored heavily into the decision about where to go. The year before McLean’s freshman year, he watched La Salle’s soccer 2022 State Championship, which they won. After seeing their triumphant results on the field, coupled with the school’s strong academics, McLean felt that this was the place for him. 

When it comes to role models, McLean points to the upperclassmen he encountered when first arriving at La Salle.

“I looked up to the seniors, freshman year,” he said. “They just seemed so big … so I wanted to be like them.”

Despite looking forward to playing on the field with them, McLean’s first La Salle season was cut short, as he tore his ACL his freshman year.

“That was tough,” he said.

Then, just as he was working his way back, he tore it again sophomore year.

The injuries were the first serious ones of his life. Before high school, he had never broken a bone or missed significant time away from his sport. Back-to-back ACL tears were something else entirely, McLean said.

Each tear meant roughly nine months of physical therapy before he could return to the field. He spent much of that time on leg machines — kicking up and down in the same motion, day after day. The repetition was relentless, but he kept showing up anyway, he said.

“I’m glad I was able to recover from them,” he said. “I mean, it’s obviously a setback, but I put in the work, and I’m back on the field.”

The work of getting back was not glamorous. It was sleeping enough, eating right, and doing small physical activities that slowly rebuilt what the tears had taken, he said.

“I’m just proud of the consistency and how I did little things every day to get back,” he said. “Even just walking after the surgeries is tough — but I got through it.”

McLean’s dad works long hours, but never lets that affect how he treats his kids, McLean said. No matter the kind of day his dad has had, he stays kind and supportive.

“I know it’s hard,” McLean said, but “he’s always looking out for us instead of himself.”

He also notes how his mom is always watching out for him and his brothers, no matter what. And through both recoveries, neither of his parents pushed him toward a timeline he wasn’t ready for. 

“They’re always supporting me,” he said. “After being in the hospital and getting back into things again, they never pushed me one way, or even pushed me to get back into sports. They just let me do it by myself, and [were] always there along the way.”

Luckily, McLean was able to return to the field in his junior year, playing for La Salle in the fall and playing for PCU from winter to summer. It gave the long recovery a sense or purpose beyond just getting healthy, he said.

“La Salle has definitely helped because it’s kind of like a reality check, you know,” he said. “After injuries, going back to a team, being a part of something, just helping any way you can, and helping to win, I guess, is the main goal — I hope to bring that into college, just helping the team and supporting one another.”

The injuries gave McLean a direction beyond soccer as well. He’s decided to major in kinesiology at PLU, setting his sights on becoming a physical therapist — a decision which came directly out of those nine-month stretches spent in recovery.

“I’ve had some good physical therapists and some bad physical therapists, so I just want to be able to help people and use my experience in that field and try to help them along the way,” he said.

When McLean began looking at colleges, he kept his initial search close to home, considering schools like George Fox University alongside PLU. But after a spring break visit to the campus during his junior year, McLean made up his mind.

“As soon as I looked at Pacific Lutheran, I knew I wanted to go there,” he said. 

During his visit, he met a fellow student athlete already on the soccer team, and the two talked about the team and life at PLU in general for close to an hour. McLean noted that he was a little nervous, even scared to speak with him at first. It didn’t last, McLean said.

“He was so down to earth, and he was humble,” he said, two qualities he also noted about the campus and surrounding community. 

The head coach at Pacific Lutheran additionally called McLean in to talk about his highlight tape. The two shared a candid, transparent conversation about what the program looked like and how he could fit into it. The exchange made an impact on McLean.

“He called me for like 15 minutes about my highlight tape, and he just was so honest and open about what the team looks like and how I could be a part of it,” he said. 

He also sat in on a kinesiology class during the visit. College coursework had always seemed like a different world from the outside — serious and demanding. What he found was a room of students working through difficult material and still finding reasons to laugh.

“They seemed like they were learning pretty hard stuff — a college class seems so different — but they were really just laughing and joking, like high school,” he said.

Though the campus is smaller, McLean enjoys the tight-knit community that comes with it. He leaves for PLU in the fall, carrying nervousness and excitement for the future in hand.

“I’m just excited to be on my own for a change,” he said. “I’m nervous to be away from my family, obviously, but I think I’ll grow as a person.”

Looking ahead, there is a lot on the horizon for McLean. As he studies kinesiology and works toward becoming a physical therapist, he plans to keep “playing soccer along the way,” he said. 

“I couldn’t ask for anything else,” McLean said.