Caroline. Lurgio is well-known as an IB and freshman English teacher, and for her hilarious jokes of the day. Yet, many students don’t know the exceptionally interesting life she lives outside of school.
Lurgio was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, where she learned to surf, race sailboats, and play soccer. Through games of pick-up, Lurgio connected and played with a future member of the Men’s National Team, a winner of the youth national soccer title, and a goalie for Pepperdine University. “I don’t know how I got so lucky,” said Lurgio enthusiastically.
Leaving California, Lurgio played Division 1 collegiate soccer at Colorado College, and after securing her bachelors degree, knew she wanted to continue playing. This led her to Paul Mariner, an English national team player who was coaching in Arizona, where she followed.
Moving to Arizona, being trained by Mariner and coaching youth soccer, she played two seasons for women’s national team feeder teams, and a season in both New Zealand and Memphis, TN, respectively. At 25, Lurgio tried out for the women’s professional team but wasn’t chosen. “I feel like I reached my potential,” said Lurgio, “but I was pretty proud of myself because I went as far as I could, and you don’t really get to say that about many things.”
However, when she was in Tennessee, Lurgio made many connections with professional players and was exposed to the truth of their lives. “You had to be willing to constantly move, and constantly build new relationships, and then end those relationships, and move somewhere else.”
Admitting she made it as far as she could, Lurgio was ready for a change. “I told my parents: I want a dog,” said Lurgio, “I want roots.” Having most of her life invested in soccer, she readdressed another of her primary interests: reading. Having her B.A. in English, Lurgio went somewhere she had competed many times when at Colorado College, and decided to pursue her M.A. at the University of Montana.
Maintaining her relationship with soccer, Lurgio started her first job as a teacher when she began coaching soccer at Corvallis High School, which led her to coaching soccer at Hellgate. “Soccer has always been an amazing connection with people,” said Lurgio.
Soccer in some ways introduced her to teaching, as Lurgio coached in Arizona. “I really enjoyed being in an environment with kids in a subject that I loved,” said Lurgio. “Soccer was easy… same thing with books.”
However, for many sports are a liberty that kids want to participate in; the same is not always said for school. Yet Lurgio believes it’s much less about the subjects being taught, but the relationships being created. “I have kids. You realize how important teachers can be, not because of what they teach curriculum wise, but how they interact with people,” she said enthusiastically.
“I know not everybody likes books, but at the same time learning how to be a civil person and learning how to communicate is extremely important in life.”
Lurgio is not only a soccer player, she is a cyclist as well – a distinguished one at that. Initially, Lurgio began biking to cross train for soccer season versus other options like running. Post semi-professional soccer and children, time was cut short for activity. Thus the rigor of mountain biking became a go-to. “I’m a pretty competitive person, but not with anyone else, just with myself… I like the feeling of pushing myself really hard,” said Lurgio.
Lurgio and her husband Jeremy, with the assistance of free childcare, started competitive biking. Notably, Lurgio competed in the Butte 50 last summer, and this year won the Pan-American Championship for the Women’s 45-49 age group.
This wasn’t Lurgio’s most accomplished race though, by her standards. “I’ve had closer races where I’ve felt psyched about where I finished… It wasn’t a close battle,” said Lurgio.
The same could not be said for the second day.
“I was really muddy, and so my shoes had this mud and so when I clipped in.. it wasn’t fully clipped in and I didn’t know that,” Lurgio began. She recounted trying to begin and immediately her right, then her left feet clip out. “And both of my feet are on the ground, I’m not on my seat- just holding on,” said Lurgio. ‘Ms. Hinman was watching… She said, ‘You had sparks coming off your feet because of the metal clips!’” Despite this, Lurgio humbly announced that she placed third in this race.
Having activity play such a significant role in Lurgio’s life, she tries to bring that into the classroom. One way is going on a walk, inside or outside, during block periods. “It’s a lot easier to talk to someone when you’re walking than when you are sitting face-to-face,” said Lurgio. Sustaining a healthy lifestyle is less about the generic facts of why engaging in sports is important, but for Lurgio it helps build those teacher-student relationships.
Lurgio sees the importance of having an emphasis on activity, but more importantly general management of student lives. “I want to encourage balance more.”
Many teachers, Lurgio amongst them, are extremely concerned about how overwhelmed students are once they become aware of what colleges want. Attempting to become the perfect candidate for schools, lack of balance becomes an issue that Lurgio has especially denounced. “Balance yourself. Don’t sit at home for 6 hours doing homework… go outside, take a break,” said Lurgio. The same can be said for the opposite side of the spectrum, but Lurgio said this can truly be fixed through “a reversal of balance in their commitments.”
Following Covid, there has been a noticeable shift in the work ethic of students. Instead of “struggling through it,” students instead withdraw themselves in the quite literal sense. When building these essential relationships with students, Lurgio finds immense difficulty when they aren’t there in the first place.
However, countering this fall off can be done, with teachers like Lurgio heading it. Lurgio has led her life with passion and balance and wants to encourage her students to live similarly. “We do hard things, and things don’t get easier, we just handle hard better.”
