Aimee Medwin’s journey from Tasmania to Long Beach State University
LONG BEACH, Calif. — Just a handful of years ago, Aimee Medwin was playing for Australia’s U16 women’s national soccer team. She is now a starting defender on Long Beach State University’s soccer team. If you are wondering how a girl from the capital city of the island of Tasmania ended up playing Division I soccer in one of the best conferences in the United States, worry no more.
Medwin was always destined to play Division I soccer. After playing on Australia’s U16 women’s national team, she played for the semi-professional Melbourne City FC. She then looked to play NCAA Division I soccer. She went on two official visits to the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) and Louisiana State University (LSU).
“Going on your official visits is difficult, because I was flying into a different country for 48 hours,” Medwin said. Even though she could not spend much time at each university on her visits, she committed to play soccer at Ole Miss.
She experienced a lot of change when she moved to Mississippi.
“Going to a different country is a big culture shock,” she said. She also admitted that she struggled adjusting to Ole Miss. “It probably just wasn’t the right fit.”
She did not play very much in her one season at Ole Miss. She only played in five games, but one of those games was against Long Beach State on neutral ground. After that game, she decided to look into transferring to LBSU.
Medwin’s Ole Miss coaching staff helped her enter the NCAA transfer portal, a process she was not familiar with, and she transferred to LBSU. When I asked if she had any additional reasons for choosing to transfer to LBSU, she answered insightfully.
“I knew they were going to be a good program,” she said. “I thought this is probably going to be a good time to go in.” She also said that it is easier for her family to get to Long Beach than Mississippi and the flight is shorter for them.
Her first season at LBSU was canceled because of COVID-19, but she has been one of the key contributors on her team this year. She played in 15 games so far and has been a starting defender for 14 of them. She is yet to score a goal (defenders rarely score goals in soccer). She also played an impressive 96 minutes against the UC Irvine Anteaters a couple weeks ago. She has proven that she is a good addition to the historically strong LBSU women’s soccer team, and I only expect her to improve in her time at LBSU.
Medwin is an academic junior but can play two more full seasons of soccer after this one. She is majoring in kinesiology but does not plan to stop playing soccer after college. She has very big plans for herself. She plans on playing in the professional ranks. She would love to play in Australia’s professional soccer league, but she wants to travel and go to the United Kingdom to play soccer first.
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