Profile by Linley Grosman '28

Laila Nickelson '26 is a midfielder on the Women's Soccer team from Bethesda, Maryland. She grew up trying all different sports, from gymnastics to swimming, but her favorite by far has always been soccer.

"I was a pretty active kid - my first memory of sports was playing soccer back in kindergarten. We had a little coed team with my grade back at my elementary school, and so we just had a chance to run around. I really enjoyed the team aspect of it, and I liked how dynamic soccer is."

Laila continued growing in the sport, simply enjoying the freedom she gained from running around a field. Laila played in the Club Champions League (CCL), a youth soccer club program in the Mid-Atlantic. The pandemic hit during the spring of her junior year in high school, making recruiting difficult given Laila couldn't go on her planned visits of colleges and universities.

"[Recruiting] was a little different because I had to rely on old clips of me and do more work networking-wise. Bowdoin has a good mix of academics and athletics, and that was kind of where I was at. I also ran track in high school, so I liked having a balance and not just making soccer my entire life. I'm happy that I ended up at a place where I can get a good balance of both."

As a walk-on, Laila quickly found her role on the team, getting minutes in all the games her freshman year. After taking a year off from college, Laila rejoined the team in the Fall of 2023, where she again got minutes in every game, and scored her first collegiate goal against Babson College.

It was a successful year for the Polar Bears, with a record of 11-5-5 and third in the NESCAC standings. In the conference tournament semifinals, Bowdoin faced Williams, and it came down to penalty kicks. Laila recalled how goalkeeper Charlotte Iannone '26 had memorized how Williams took their penalties, which led Iannone to make some clutch saves, sending the team to the finals.

"It was just an exciting environment and to know that we all contributed towards all the games to the final, it was just really encouraging. I feel that was a strong point for our team and just showed a lot about individual effort and being there for each other as a group."

Laila is the Community Service Representative for the Athletes of Color Coalition at Bowdoin, helping connect the college to the Maine community through events, volunteering, and fundraisers surrounding athletics. She has also helped organize multiple events for Women's Soccer, like KickStart, Powderpuff, and Girls & Women in Sports Day. 

Back on the main quad, Laila is a Visual Arts Major with a Cinema Studies minor, a combination Laila was not planning for herself when she arrived at Bowdoin.

"I was really set on being like a STEM girl because I really liked physics in high school - I hadn't really had a chance to explore art in an academic sense."

However, after taking a variety of classes, Laila found her love for the humanities and created positive connections with professors in each department.

"I think the fact that Bowdoin offers such a range of in-depth courses and has professors who are very passionate about what they're teaching broadened my sphere of what I could do for a major. The authenticity of the professors helps build very strong personal connections with their students, which is something that has kept me very curious as well."

Outside of the classroom, Laila likes to keep moving. During the pandemic, Laila used dance to keep active when she couldn't play soccer with her teammates. In the spring semester of her sophomore year, she took an Introduction to Hip Hop class, reigniting her love for dance.

"I didn't know anybody else that was taking the class, but it was a really supportive space and to have a physical activity that wasn't soccer-related during the day was just really freeing. I had a really great time and then we had a 'Show and Groove' at the end of the semester, which is just a big party with all the dance classes. It was a cool chance to get to interact with people that I don't normally see outside of athletics."

Continuing her passion, Laila joined The Cowboys, a hip-hop dance group that performs at sporting events and end-of-semester performances.

"It has been a positive space - it's a lot of people of color and so we get to talk about a lot of like current events and it's a space to share about other parts of my identity. [I have] a nice balance between [The Cowboys] and soccer, two groups that I can really confide in."