If ever there is a full-circle moment, Texas Southern senior women’s soccer player Kamara Bradley is already anticipating one on Oct. 31.
That day marks Bradley’s final regular-season, and she can’t help but see the irony of it taking place at the Prairie View A&M Soccer Complex – the very place where her college career started, playing for the Panthers as a freshman four years ago. Between then and now, Bradley has endured three coaching changes, two transfers, and now feels the comfort of finally being in a place where she belongs this season.
Bradley is coming to grips with the reality that her college career, with all its twists and turns, is coming to an end.
“Certain things kind of hit me. This is really it. This is the end of the road for me,” said Bradley, who is in her final year as a graduate student at TSU. “Once (SWAC Tournament) comes around, it will really hit me, and I may be a little sad.
“It’s definitely gone by way faster than I would have liked for it to, regardless of how long the seasons feel while I’m playing them. It’s just gone too fast.”
While Bradley’s college career hasn’t gone quite like she envisioned before arriving at Prairie View’s campus, she is grateful for how it’s ending. Bradley has found the coach of her choosing in Danesha Adams and is back playing her more natural forward position, which allows her to be the offensive threat she has always envisioned herself being.
The results have justified a difficult decision to switch to the Panthers’ rival school after three years.
The Tigers, the defending SWAC regular-season champions, are sitting in third place while Bradley ranks sixth in the conference in goals (5), fifth in shots (31), and seventh in shots on goal (13) coming into the final game of the regular season.
“When I was at PV, I was not playing the position that I normally play. I was playing defender,” said Bradley, a product of Byron Nelson High School in Trophy Club, Texas. “Coach Adams gave me the opportunity to play back in my position as a forward again. I feel like it’s helped me a lot, like clarity. Knowing that I really can do this. I feel like that has shown on the field because I have so many goals on this defense so far.
“I feel like I was able to bring that offensive force to the team because I wasn’t able to do that at my last school.”
After having a successful first two years as an offensive player at Prairie View, the 5-foot-5 Bradley was moved to the defensive side of the field. Her 15 or 16 years of soccer made the transition easier, but it still wasn’t natural.
So, with a degree in hand, Bradley made the decision to transfer elsewhere. She initially landed at Sam Houston State, where Sonia Curvelo, the coach who recruited Bradley to PV but left before Bradley’s freshman year, was now the head coach. The only problem was that while Bradley was getting comfortable with the Bearkats, Curvelo bolted again. This time for San Jose State.
Sam Houston State then hired Kendall Ayers, who had spent the last season at TSU, where she guided the Tigers to the regular-season SWAC title.
“When I found out she was the coach, I was like, ‘Okay, I kind of have good vibes about this,’ because she came from SWAC and everything,” Bradley said of Ayers. “But I just don’t think we connected, player-to-coach level.
“I ended up getting released, and I was going to go with that coach again to San Jose State but then I was like I think I’m just going to look for something around home.”
That’s when Bradley’s mom suggested she look into Adams, who had played at UCLA back in the day and had been the co-head coach at the University of Pacific and an assistant at the University of Houston before being hired at TSU this past summer. Bradley shot Adams an email, and soon after, conversations took place.
Then Bradley landed on campus.
“I think we connect well,” Bradley said. “She is an offensive-minded person because she played forward. I think that connection was there from the jump.”
And it has endured. Adams has put Bradley in positions to be successful, and Bradley has thrived, even when tasked with playing defense from time to time.
“She has been a huge addition for multiple reasons,” Adams said. “I just think for her, she needed a new home. She needed a new place to reinvigorate her career.
“She was the leading goal scorer for PV her first two years there then a positional change, things happen. I just think for her, she needed a breath of fresh air.”
Bradley is glad she has ended up with the coach she has and playing with the teammates who have fully embraced her. But it has been quite the journey to finally arrive at this point.
“It’s been pretty rocky. If I had to, I would compare it to a rollercoaster. I know a lot of people say that, but just from my first year of college,” said Bradley, who will also compete with the Tigers’ track team in the spring. “I’ve played under three different coaches, recruited under another one. Multiple recruitments, commitments. All of that.
“It’s been a lot. Even in just the three years I was at PV, I feel like I went through a lot, too, emotionally and physically, while there. It’s been tough to be a college athlete, especially a soccer player, but I definitely think that the highs will always beat the lows. I love to play the game.”
“I was just telling our assistant coach the other day, it just feels so good and relaxing to just do what I want and know how to do again. It’s very relieving because it’s like I’m proving to myself that I really am the player
Kamara Bradley, TSU senior forward
that I thought I was.”
Along the way, Bradley has learned some things about herself.
“The hardest part of this journey being a college soccer player is really understanding myself and what my goals are,” she said. “There were a lot of times when I kind of second-guessed my decisions. Do I want to do this? Do I not want to do this?
“Leaving PV was never an easy choice for me. I loved being there, I loved playing. I just felt like I needed to make a better decision for myself, just soccer-wise. And personally, I just don’t think it was the place for me after a few years. I think it taught me self-reflection more than anything.”
