During the weekend, Arizona forward London King scored two goals – one of which a game-winner in double overtime against Oregon State on Friday. The
Wildcat caught up with the junior after practice yesterday to discuss her recent performance, being slightly OCD and the U.S. women’s soccer team.
Wildcat: You scored the game-winning goal Friday against Oregon State in double overtime. What was the feeling like?
King: It feels good, like a relief, to get the ball in the back of the net. But I definitely couldn’t do it without my team. That was definitely a complete build-up from the back to Jacqueline (Broussard) working it up the side and getting the good cross. So, it was good that a lot of people touched the ball.
W: You guys are now 1-2-1 in the Pacific 10 Conference. How big was the win for you guys as a team?
K: It was really big. We really needed to go out there and make a statement and prove ourselves because last weekend (against Washington and Washington State) we didn’t come out too well. So it was big for us to come out and prove to ourselves that we could get the job done.
W: You have three top-five teams remaining on your schedule (No. 4 Stanford, No. 2 USC and No. 1 UCLA). Does that make you nervous at all?
K: No, I’m more excited than nervous. It’s a pride thing. You get up more when you play better teams, and I definitely think our team is more about that. So us playing harder teams is not really a problem – I actually think the games will be a lot better.
W: Now for some non-soccer questions. Do you have any hidden talents or something people might not know about you?
K: A hidden talent? I don’t think this is a talent, but I’m really OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) about picking my nails. It’s such a bad habit, I can’t fix it; it’s crazy.
W: Do people notice?
K: Yes! (laughs) Really bad.
W: You have a pretty unique name, is there a story behind it?
K: Well, the story is, my mom didn’t want to know what the sex of the child was, but she assumed it was a boy, so my name was going to be Mark Anthony. But instead she just flipped through some books and she saw one in there and just picked it.
W: Does anyone ever mispronounce it?
K: Oh! I feel my name is pretty easy. I mean, you’ve heard it before. But it happens so many times. I get Landon a lot, I don’t know why. Maybe I just write sloppy, but I don’t know. It gets mixed up a lot actually.
W: If you could spend a day with anyone, who would it be?
K: I don’t want to seem all cliché, but probably Dr. Martin Luther King. It just seems like it would have been great to be in that time era, just to make a difference and stand up and actually march with him. So, it would definitely be him.
W: Would you have benched (U.S. women’s soccer team goalkeeper) Hope Solo?
K: Hmm. I’m going to go with no. She would have been playing on my team.
W: You think U.S. head coach Greg Ryan should have been fired for that?
K: No, big decisions come and you have to give the coach a little slack. That is a difficult thing to do. It was (Briana Scurry’s) last time she was ever going to be keeper, so he didn’t know what the right move was. But I don’t think any move was the right one.
as told to Bobby Stover