Women's Soccer Alumna Trading Cleats for Robes at Oxford

Lauren Chang’s academic career took her from Cambridge to Oxford. Maybe not THAT Cambridge, but yes, THAT Oxford. The South Carolina women’s soccer alumna (2017-2021) graduated from Cambridge High School in Georgia before starring in the midfield for the Gamecocks while graduating from the South Carolina Honors College and earning a bachelor’s in political science and master’s in business administration. Now she’s headed to the prestigious University of Oxford in England to study law.

“The plan was always to play abroad and then study law at some point,” said Chang, who has spent the last four years since graduating playing for AC Sparta Praha in the Czech Republic. “I’ve always been interested in law because it affects everyone. I’m really interested in corporate law because I saw a lot of it when I was getting my MBA. I would love to be a CLO (Chief Legal Officer) of a football club and still be involved with football, or I could work with the Champions League or the Europa League or something like that. It would be cool to be able to apply football to law.”

Her ambition to move on from playing soccer was based on a desire to go out on her own terms.

“Playing over here has been one of the best experiences of my life,” Chang said. “It was exciting going somewhere where you don’t speak the language, and you just have to figure it out. It was hard at first because you realize quickly that you don’t know anything about how that country works. After the first six months, I felt like I had figured it out, and I loved it.

“Last summer (2024) I had signed a contract extension for another year, and I thought it might be my last one. I’m at the point where I want to be able to choose when it’s last my season rather than be told it’s my las season. I wanted to see what is after this (soccer). I started looking into law programs in Europe because I wanted to stay their long term. Oxford came up as number one. I wanted to go for the best, and if I don’t get in, I’ll work for a year and then try again.”

After getting all the necessary documentation and recommendations, she had to take an admissions test by a certain date, which was a challenge as she was playing in the Champions League with her club in Sweden for a couple of weeks.

“When I got back from that trip, I bought a practice exam booklet, and I did one practice test every day for two weeks,” Chang said. “Then I took my test on the fifteenth day. I didn’t hear back until December that I had gotten an interview, and last January I found out I was admitted! It was a crazy ride. I was on a bus when I opened the email. I hit the ‘next stop’ button on the bus and got off and started freaking out!

“I feel like we as student-athletes sell ourselves short sometimes. Some will think when they leave the field, what do I have to offer? But in fact, you realize, I have so much to offer. I never want a reason that I don’t succeed to be an effort-based problem, so I’m always going to give one hundred percent of my effort, and if I don’t get something, then I know it’s not on my part that I didn’t get in or I didn’t get the job. If I’m going to do something, I don’t like to do it halfway and have regrets. If you’re going to do something, you do it properly and give it your best shot. That’s just always been a guiding principle for me. That’s how you can take your skills on the field or on the court and apply it to the rest of your life.”

Chang enjoyed success on and off the pitch during her time with the Gamecocks. She was a three-time Second Team All-SEC selection and was a two-time CoSIDA Second Team All-America honoree, the SEC Co-Scholar Athlete of the Year after the 2020 season, and a member of the SEC Academic Honor Roll every year on campus.

She scored 16 goals and is tied for fifth in program history with 24 assists during her career with the Garnet and Black while helping the Gamecocks reach the NCAA Tournament all five years, including the program’s first College Cup semifinal appearance in her freshman season of 2017.

“I was fortunate to have so many good memories at South Carolina,” Chang said. “I was a part of that Final Four group. That was incredible because when you’re a freshman, you see very quickly that hard work and dedication can directly equate to success at the highest level. That was a great way to start my career.

“I was so lucky to have such a great group of girls throughout my four and half years there. The things that always come to mind are the bus rides where you just want to stop everything and hang out with your friends. There are so many moments where it just felt like a family.”

While she enjoyed her time at South Carolina, she knows being on Oxford’s campus will be a little bit different.

“I’ll be staying at University College of Oxford,” said Chang, who visited the campus last spring. “You get there, and you realize it’s one of the oldest universities in the world and one of the most prestigious. You can really feel it. The city and the university are intertwined, and it’s really beautiful. Some of the Harry Potter movies were filmed there, and it feels just like that in some ways. I’m eating in a dining hall that looks like the great hall from Hogwarts!

“I will have to wear robes for some days, so I don’t know if my Gamecock Women’s Soccer shirts and running shorts will be on me every day like they were at USC.”