By Daniel Kerwin

When she used to attend her brother’s soccer games in Berkeley, California, Annie Borton ’07 would dribble a ball up and down the sidelines. Now a three-time All-American and according to her coach, John Leaney, probably one of the top 5 players Macalester has ever had, she maintains a modest demeanor.
“It’s pretty cool to look back at it [her soccer career], but when it happens you don’t pay too much attention,” Borton said. “I’ve never been too into stats.”
Borton’s housemate and teammate, Rachel Oman ’07, said she remembers when someone took Borton’s All-American certificates last summer from the floor of her room and put them up on the mantel.
“Annie got so embarrassed when she noticed. She took it down after a few days and I guess she has hidden them now because nobody has found them to put back up” Oman said. “She also won’t wear the fleece warm-up jacket she got that has a patch that says All-American so sometimes I wear it to practice for her.”
“I never felt like getting awards and breaking records was what she was striving for, they were just icing on the cake so to speak,” Oman adds.
Borton holds second place on the women’s soccer team’s all-time goals and assists lists with 52 goals and 37 assists, has been named to All-MIAC teams all four years she’s been at Mac, and has been named to three All-American teams.
“It mostly has to do with having a good team around me,” Borton said.
Indeed, the team won the MIAC title all but one year that Borton was a member and earned a berth in the NCAA tournament every year in the same time span.
This season as a senior on a predominantly young team, Borton took on not only the role of co-captain, but the role of a mentor to the younger players on the team, adding to the challenge of the year.
“She’s a model of what we want a Macalester senior to be, thinking of the program,” Leaney said.
“I guess you could say she put me in my place, in a good way” striker Grace King ’09 said. “On and off the field, she was really able to bring different branches of the team together. Annie is my mentor. She is [number] 14, I am [number] 7. What can I say? I am trying to be only as good as half of her.”
“Annie leads by example,” Assistant Coach Kate Ryan Reiling said. “She encourages and directs people on the field.”
At Macalester, Borton has been a part of the Student Athletic Advisory Committee (SAAC), the senior gift committee and the basketball team while not playing soccer.
“I don’t have a lot of basketball experience” Borton said. “It’s been interesting playing a sport I don’t know as well as soccer. It’s been a good time and the team’s been fun, but it’s very different from soccer.”
Along with her other accomplishments this year, Borton also earned Academic All-District first team honors. As part of her studies, she spent spring semester 2006 studying abroad in Tanzania at the University of Dar es Salaam.
Borton had never heard of Macalester until her junior year at Berkeley High when a friend of hers started looking at Mac. The college fit the profile she was looking for, and it didn’t hurt that the soccer program impressed her. She came to Mac and made her impact, becoming a starting striker in her first season.
“We don’t get to see the coasts when recruiting” Leaney said. “We knew she would be good, but not as good as she has been. Next season we lose Annie Borton, which is a huge loss to any team.”
This semester, Borton will be starting an internship with an organization called Spare Key, which was introduced to her by Reiling, who works for the organization. Spare Key helps families with critically ill children to pay their mortgages.
Borton said she is not sure what the future holds, noting that sociology was a purposely vague major for her, but said there is a possibility that in a couple of years she will be in a graduate school or law school.
“Looking back at the last four years, it was fun to win and all, but the team was the best part” Borton said. “We had a lot of good moments both on and off the field: winning games against good teams, a pumpkin carving contest, and some great costume parties. It might sound cheesy, but the people really make Mac soccer what it is.”