On Taylor Bennett’s shoulder blade, the words “Mother of Victory” are permanently inked in her mother’s handwriting. They mark her sister’s ribcage. For her mom, Janine, the words appear on her left arm, along with the number seven, for Bennett, and 27 for Leighann, her sister.

The tattoo is the name of a poem Janine helped write during her freshman year of college at Cortland. The Red Dragons were in need of a pregame prayer before they entered their first game. So, Janine wrote one. When she became a coach after her college career, she read the poem pre-game and the tradition stayed until she coached her daughters.

Growing up, Bennett had always been coached by her mom and scored goals. At Syracuse, a position change led Bennett to take on a leadership role for the Orange defense. She has started all but one game at SU. Last season, she tallied the highest number of points for a defender playing for the Orange.

“She loved the sport,” Janine said, “and she’s so passionate and she’s such a hard worker and so competitive that the coaching part wasn’t hard.”

Bennett was four years old the first time she stepped on a soccer field to play. She remembered it like “swarm ball”: little structure, kids running after the ball.

She grew up on the soccer field. Her mom coached while pregnant with Bennett. When Bennett was an infant, she was on the sidelines in a baby carrier, strapped to her mom.

“When she could walk and run she’d be off with a ball on her own or come be with us on the sidelines,” Janine said.

When Bennett started playing soccer at the club level, Janine was her coach. They spent almost all of their time together, between practice and being at home.

At one point, Bennett did switch teams. The two reached a point in which it was hard to separate coach and family and so, for one season, they tried separating. But the next year, when Bennett reached seventh grade, her mom became her coach again.

“Some days it was great and some days it was a battle,” Janine said. “It was a battle because we were 24/7 together. I was her mother, her coach, her teacher.”

Coached by her mom, Bennett broke the high school record for single-season scoring (48 goals) and played in three state championships, winning two of them. She was two goals off from breaking the Section IV career scoring record.

But neither Janine nor Bennett knew that the latter was close to the record. Had Janine knew, she would have tried to help her daughter get those two goals in her senior season. It didn’t occur to her to look up the record until after Bennett’s final game when people asked about it.

“We don’t talk about those things,” Janine said. “We don’t talk about the awards, it’s just the way it is.”

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Growing up with a mom and a sister that both played soccer at a high level meant a competitive household, though their styles of play varied due to different positions. Leighann was a forward at Binghamton while Bennett defended for SU. Still, the two occasionally completed drills together when they were home. Taylor said they don’t like to do that often because they “like to leave soccer on the soccer field and bring family home.”

When SU started recruiting Bennett, they wanted to move her to defense. She was an attacker her whole life prior — so Janine moved Bennett to center defender for the last two years of her high school career.

Bennett still maintained an offensive edge. In high school, against a rival team, the score was 0-0 with less than 10 minutes left. Bennett, starting on the defensive end, dribbled the ball the length of the field to score the winning goal.

“She’s just as intense defensively as she was offensively,” Janine said.

The seamless change still enticed SU. While other teams pressured Bennett to make a decision, SU allowed time for her to think things through.

Syracuse’s proximity to Bennett’s home in Dryden N.Y. attracted her. Bennett, a self-proclaimed “homebody,” and her mother made the roughly hour drive to SU whenever they could growing up. While they didn’t always visit because of soccer, the Bennetts would often go up to watch SU players that played near Dryden.

“We want the best players in New York to come to Syracuse,” SU head coach Phil Wheddon said, “and Taylor was one of the best players in New York, if not the best.”

At SU, her offensive state of mind transfers to the field, as well. She takes set pieces for the Orange and had the highest number of points for a defender last season. This season Bennett has recorded four shots, three on goal.

Over the last three years, Bennett has shown versatility. Her powerful leg can send the ball deep into the opposite side of the field. All the while, she’s been a star in SU’s backline. Wheddon has seen flashes of her offensive game throughout her time at SU. He even switched her to forward a few games last season.

Wheddon said she provides SU with a “combative nature.” After many years under the confines of her mom’s coaching, the eldest player on Syracuse’s backline is stepping into a leadership position of her own.

Said Janine: “Syracuse was fantastic to her.”

Published on September 10, 2018 at 12:22 am

Contact Kaci: klwasile@syr.edu