Rare feet on campus

You undoubtedly figure you'd have a better chance of finding an eagle in your backyard than the No. 1 women's soccer defender in the world.

Don't look now, but there she is.

The No. 1 women's soccer defender in the world.

An Eagle.

In your backyard.

You still aren't convinced? Well, don't feel foolish. Laura Georges is with you.

She plays for Boston College, she knows the No. 1 women's soccer defender in the world rather well, and she doesn't buy it.

``I see the names on the list," she says, ``and I say to myself, `There are better players.' "

But unlike you, Georges isn't free to doubt. The rankings of FIFA, the sport's governing body, are gospel, so Georges can't legitimately debate the issue of who's No. 1.

She's it.

The thing is, she means it. There is no pretentious humility to the Frenchwoman, just a serene self-awareness and a matter-of-fact self-deprecation that nobody else will acknowledge.

``I still sometimes say, `Why am I included in this?' " Georges says.

Here's why.

Testimony 1: The North Carolina match last season. BC was drilled, 4-1, at the soccer mecca of Chapel Hill. But the Eagles played creditably, Georges phenomenally. She spent most of the match in midair, as if suspended from a bungee cord, ``and no one could stop her," says BC coach Alison Foley. Afterward, legendary Tar Heels coach Anson Dorrance, who has tutored and observed some of the best players ever, told Foley, ``We've seen nothing like that before."

Testimony 2: The Algarve Cup. At the international tournament in Portugal, France tied the United States, 0-0 -- an upset, for sure -- ``and after the match, all the US players were talking about Laura," says Eagles assistant Mike LaVigne, founding father of the BC program. ``And her name was all over the US national team website."

Now the word has gone worldwide about Georges's unparalleled package of agility, speed, and vertical jump -- ``the best combination I've seen in a BC woman athlete in any sport," says Foley. ``Ever."

Her impact is no longer confined to Chestnut Hill.

``The introduction of Laura to the US," says Foley, ``has other coaches looking into international players for their programs."

That Georges wound up in the Eagles' program now seems unimaginable.

BC is a solid team with quality players in a premium league, the Atlantic Coast Conference. But it's no soccer superpower. And Georges is ignored in a city that develops a rash when presented with anything other than the four traditional American team sports. Yet she's right here, the world's 12th-best overall player -- again by FIFA's reckoning -- performing at a scruffy field in Newton while wearing maroon and gold on a regular basis.

Not that she considers herself too good for the Eagles, or too good, period.

The FIFA imprimatur ``is no big deal to me," she says. ``I still have to work hard to improve. It doesn't change anything."

No, it merely metamorphoses the recruiting flier BC took on Georges 2 1/2 years ago into a monumental coup.

Back then, Georges was a soccer prodigy for the French national team, which meant she was basically unheralded outside the French national team, France not being exactly the creme de la creme of women's soccer.

She hadn't taken up the game on an organized basis until the advanced age of 12; before that, she'd contented herself with playing for laughs in the park outside her Versailles home and watching her father explore his inner Pelé in a workingman's rec league.

Within three years after pursuing the sport seriously at the suggestion of a classmate of her brother's, she was on the national under-19 team, and at 17, she was with the big club. She was on her way to the international summit, but nobody could forecast her meteoric progression. Lucky BC. Savvy BC, too.

When the Eagles took an exhibition tour through France and Italy during spring break in 2004, Georges was toiling in obscurity for her Paris St. Germain club team.

``I wasn't aware of her before the match," says Foley. ``Two minutes into it, I was. She was head and shoulders the best player on the team."

BC was in the market for players, so what the heck, why not take a gamble on this kid? But first, the Eagles had to investigate her academic credentials.

``We sent our translator over to her," says Foley, ``to ask her if she spoke English."

Oui. Fluently.

BC's campaign intensified during a pizza party after its 2-0 victory. Foley chatted up Georges and discovered she was as interested in America as BC was in her.

``I was studying marketing," says Georges, who had spent two years at Leonardo da Vinci University in Paris, ``and I knew the US had excellent programs. I looked at the BC program, and it was very strong."

The transaction has paid dividends both ways. Georges, who has spent summers in the BC marketing department, will graduate with a degree in communications in December. And BC . . . well, BC found a diamond in a bowl of cornflakes.

The Eagles are practicing at Alumni Stadium on this afternoon. Laura Georges is not practicing.

She goes for a leisurely 35-minute run. She casually stretches on the turf. She sits off to the side -- she does a lot of sitting -- while her teammates negotiate sundry drills.

A diva act? Jet lag.

At Foley's behest, Georges is taking it easy at practice because she's taken such a pounding getting to practice.

Two days ago, she was playing in a friendly -- her 50th international match, a singular achievement for a player so young -- and a day later, she was on a seven-hour flight to Boston. She landed at 6:30 p.m., slept little, and now feels as if her eyelids are being propped up by stilettos.

``I'm kind of tired," she says, ``traveling, being on the road, driving to my house, and two hours later, I'm at the airport. People don't understand that I don't have a day to just rest. I have to get back."

It's the exhausting price of Georges's dual soccer citizenship, but it doesn't bother her because ``I'm lucky I have a lot of energy thanks to God."

But God isn't a travel agent; Georges's latest hiatus from the Eagles has consumed nine days and cost her two college matches. Missing the matches bothers her. Taking the term ``commuter school" to the extreme does not.

``I'm lucky to have people around who trust me," she says. ``They could just say, `The match is over. Goodbye. You're on your own.' But they're willing to fly me back and forth because they believe what I can do for them is worth it."

She's doing it here. At BC. You're not hallucinating.