Christine Sinclair
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Christine Sinclair (born June 12, 1983 in Burnaby, British Columbia) is a Canadian soccer player. She is a striker for the national team and the women's section of the Vancouver Whitecaps in the W-League, the de facto top-level league in North American women's soccer. Sinclair completed an extremely successful college career at the University of Portland with a national championship in 2005, her second with the Pilots. She is already second all-time in goals scored for the Canadian national team; her 53 (as of December 4, 2005) trails only Charmaine Hooper.
Sinclair proved herself to be a potential star from childhood, as she was first selected to British Columbia's under-14 girls' all-star team at age 11. She went on to lead club teams to six league titles, five provincial titles, and two top-five national finishes, as well as leading her high school team at Burnaby South Secondary School to three league championships. She also played for Canada's under-18 national team before making her debut at senior level in the 2000 Algarve Cup, leading Canada in goal scoring at that event with three.
In 2001, she arrived at the University of Portland, and made an immediate impact on that already-strong program. She had 23 goals and 8 assists, leading all freshmen in NCAA Division I in total scoring, was named Freshman of the Year by Soccer America magazine, and was a consensus All-America.
She was also very active internationally during this time. In 2002, she scored seven goals in the Women's Gold Cup, tying her for the tournament lead with Hooper and the USA's Tiffeny Milbrett, a Portland alum. Also in 2002, she played for Canada in the inaugural FIFA U-19 Women's World Championship. Sinclair's 10 goals in the tournament, still a record, helped lead Canada to a surprising second-place finish, and earned her both the Golden Boot as leading scorer and Golden Ball as tournament MVP.
In the 2002 college season for Portland, she led Division I in goals with 26. Her last two goals were in that season's national championship game against conference rival Santa Clara, the second of which was a golden goal that gave the Pilots the national championship. Sinclair earned three different national Player of the Year honors, and was a finalist for the Hermann Trophy, the most prestigious Player of the Year award in college soccer. She was also West Coast Conference Player of the Year, and was again a consensus All-American. In the wake of her success for Canadian national teams and in U.S. college soccer, she was also named by The Globe and Mail (Toronto) as one of the 25 most influential people in Canadian sports in 2002.
Sinclair chose to redshirt in 2003 in order to play for Canada at the Women's World Cup. She scored three goals in that tournament as Canada finished a better-than-expected fourth.
She returned to Portland in 2004, scoring 22 goals that season, and was again named WCC Player of the Year and a consensus All-American. She also won the Hermann Trophy that season. Her 2005 senior season at Portland proved to be historic, as she set an all-time Division I goal-scoring record with 39. Sinclair capped off her career for the Pilots with two goals in a 4-0 rout of UCLA in the national title game. This performance also gave her a career total of 25 goals in NCAA tournament play, also a record. She was again named WCC Player of the Year, becoming only the second player in conference history to be so honored three times. Sinclair was also named Academic All-American of the Year by ESPN The Magazine (she graduated with a 3.75 grade point average in life sciences). She also won the M.A.C. Hermann Trophy, becoming only the fourth player and third woman to win it in back-to-back years. As a result of her record-setting season, Sinclair went on to win the Honda-Broderick Cup as the college woman athlete of the year. She became the third soccer player to win the award, joining Mia Hamm and Cindy Daws.