Cal Women's Soccer Player Abena Aidoo Has 'Life-Changing' Summer

* Latest in a series of periodic stories on how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted Cal athletes in different sports. The fall Cal women's soccer season was canceled

The summer was terribly important for Cal women's soccer player Abena Aidoo, and it had nothing to with sports. It had everything to do with the Black Lives Matter movement.

"It's been big," she said. "It's been life-changing for me."

She won't get a chance to compete in games this fall because the Pac-12 canceled fall sports due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and she is not even on campus now as, as she takes fall-term classes remotely from her home in Modesto, Calif.

Nonetheless she seems invigorated by her summer experience.

She took part in protests regarding racial injustice, and sees a difference in the movement because the public is getting more information about "what we go through."

Aidoo enjoyed speaking to teammates about her personal experiences.

"It was really nice to have the opportunity to do that," she said.

Several times she said the Black Lives Movement has been "life-changing."

"That was very big for me personally, just because I am an African American woman living in the United States," Aidoo said.

She has close ties to her African heritage. Both her parents are Ghanaian, and Aidoo and her faimily traveled back to Ghana every summer since she was a baby until her summer soccer activity prevented her from traveling back to Aftica.

"I'm very tied in to my Ghanaian lineage," she said.

In recent years, soccer has occupied her summers, athough that was limited this year because of the shelter-in-place directives.

She returned home to Modesto in the spring when training was canceled and has remained there. Her mother is a nurse in the cardiac-care department putting her on the frontlines, although Abena said she was away from most of the COVID-19 cases, limiting the health concerns.

Aidoo's time was spent working out to stay fit. She built a pullup bar and claims she can perform quite a few chinups.

"In a row, I could probably hit 25 without stopping," she said.

She continues to train individually in Modesto into the fall.

Aidoo is a junior this year, but the NCAA has given participants in the canceled fall sports an extra year of college eligibility. Aidoo is intrigued by the possibilities that presents, but had not decided on a particular course of action.

She is still hoping there will be some sort of college women's soccer competition this spring.