Throwback Thursday: Cynthia Dahle

Aug. 4, 2011

Cynthia (Dahle) Remke (Women’s Soccer, 1996-99)

Cynthia (Dahle) Remke came to Lawrence all the way from Anchorage, Alaska in 1996 to play forward for the KU soccer team. Since leaving the program in 1999, Dahle, now Cynthia Remke has moved around but recently returned to Lawrence to pursue a master’s degree and work in social work. She is currently a research assistant at KU’s Juniper Gardens Children’s Project

At what age did you first start playing soccer?

“I started playing when I was five-years-old in Anchorage after my parents signed me up for as boys and girls club team. We wore hot pink and we were sponsored by a septic company if you can believe it. I did not play soccer for my school until I was in junior high.”

What made you decide to come to Kansas?

“I was looking at a couple of other schools in Utah but I came on a recruiting trip and really liked Kansas. Plus the program was attractive to me because it was new and I knew I would be able to play right away. Another thing about Kansas is that it was really far away from home and I was excited for that adventure.”

What was the biggest adjustment coming from Alaska to the lower 48 states?

“Definitely the heat! I thought I was going to die because it was just so hot and humid during pre-season my freshman year.”

What was your most memorable moment on the field as a Jayhawk?

“I would say probably scoring a goal in my very first game when I was a freshman.”

What was the most challenging part of being a student-athlete?

“The most challenging part was probably the having three different aspects to your college life, the athletic part, the academic part and then the social component. It is really hard to be successful in all three of those so you almost have to sacrifice one of them to do that.”

“When it came to athletics, I would have to say the training was the hardest part because I just remember being tired a lot. During the preseason, we would have one workout in the morning and one in the afternoon, which was pretty intense. During the season we had terrible Tuesday’s, which were our fitness days. We called them that because we dreaded the workouts all day long, but really they were not that bad. “

What do you miss most about being a student-athlete at KU?

“I really miss being on the soccer field every day and being on a team that is working toward something together. Even when I play on a women’s league team now it is just not the same level of competition. It was just such a big part of my life for so long and now not to have it I definitely miss it. I do not get to go out and kick the ball around as much as I would like to these days.”

What advice would you give current KU players?

“I would tell them to enjoy every moment because it goes by really fast. I played soccer for awhile after college but I have four kids now so I do not feel like I have the opportunity to play as much but I still miss playing on a team.”

Are your children involved in sports? If so, which ones do they play?

“My daughters are involved in gymnastics and I am have coached one of them in soccer before. I found out that I like to be the head coach more than an assistant because I like to think I have a good idea of how things should be versus maybe most of the parents that are out there coaching recreational soccer teams.”

What have you been up to since you graduated?

“After I graduated and moved out to Utah, where I worked as a social worker in the school districts, while my husband went to college at BYU. After that we went to California, where he finished his graduate degree and I stayed home with my kids.

What brought you back to Lawrence?

“We came back in 2010 because my husband’s family still lives here and I actually went back to school and graduated with a master’s in critical social work this past May.
Now, I work as a research assistant for KU’s Juniper Gardens Children’s Project. The project works with children in low income neighborhoods and tries to improve the services that they are provided. I was also hired on as a research assistant as a mental health consultant on a research project keeping adolescents in school that are suffering from mental illness.”