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Military wife, soccer player, student and mother Dani Arellano has been considered a standout soccer player her entire career.
"I was lucky enough to have college coaches look at me from the start of high school," Arellano said. "Some of the college coaches assumed I was a senior but in fact I was a freshman."
Cosumnes River College Head Coach Cesar Plasencia said he was amazed at her talent.
"She just stood out of the crowd," Plasencia said. "I saw her at a high school tournament and started recruiting her."
His persistence paid off. It was between Solano and CRC for the prized student athlete. Arellano committed to the Hawks.
"Coach Cesar was always there," Arellano said. "I felt he was the best coach. He was who I wanted to play for."
Then the coach got a call he didn't see coming, Plasencia said. One month before graduation in the 2005-06 school year, Arellano found out she was going to be a mother. She was only 17 at the time, but she received an immense amount of help through a support group.
"Dani called one day and said she couldn't come play for us," Plasencia said. "And then she told me why."
She graduated with a 3.5 grade point average and then before the dust could settle, she was a mom.
And after turning 18 she was married to her high school sweetheart, Jose. They traveled together to Japan to fulfill his military agreement.
"I never lost my passion to play soccer," Arellano said. And my husband and family fully supported my efforts.
Plasencia did not lose contact with Arellano. He was still confident in the player he once tried to recruit, Plasencia said.
"Coach Cesar always kept in touch throughout my pregnancy," Arellano said. "Letting me know that I still had it and to never give up on my dreams. That meant so much."
After the reality of becoming a mother at 18 settled in, Arellano persevered towards her dream of playing soccer.
"One of my dad's dreams was to watch me play soccer at the college level," Arellano said. "And I wanted to give that to him."
Arellano wanted to tell her husband about the choice she made to play soccer at the college level.
"One night in Japan I was messing around with my husband and happened to mention that I still had a few weeks to go home and still play soccer," Arellano said. "He said go get a ticket and go home. Do it. With his blessing I did."
After coming home, it was not as easy as Arellano thought.
"It was tough at first," Arellano said. "We didn't have the camaraderie and I felt some resentment at first. But we came together as a team."
After their first three conference games, the Hawks were staring into an 0-3 hole with all losses by a score of 2-1. Arellano said she felt distant from the team she had so longed to play for.
"Things just didn't seem to be working out for one reason or another and I actually thought about quitting. I went to my team captain (sophomore Ari Fragoso) and let her know how I was feeling. She tried to talk me out of it, and then she called a players only meeting."
"There was no way we were going to let her quit," Fragoso said. "We talked about a lot of different things, one of which was that nobody has any resentment towards you and you simply can't shut down on your team."
"We came out of that meeting as a real team," Arellano said. "And we haven't lost since."
Since that day in early October the Hawks have been on fire, led by Big 8 Conference Most Valuable Player Arellano. Her 30 goals scored are tied for the lead in the entire state.
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