By Brady Smith
Mountaineer Illustrated

Baby doll. Cutie pie. Pumpkin. Princess.

All are common nicknames given by fathers across the world to their beloved daughters, names that usually have the life span of a goldfish.

So when Keith Seaman dubbed his precious little girl Christen "Sugar," who knew what would happen?

The name took on a life of its own, evolving from "Sugar" to "Sugar Bear" to "Suggie Bear" to just plain "Suggie."

As Christen hit her teens, her soccer teammates followed her father's lead and began to refer to her as "Suggie" (pronounced Shuggie), a name that would stick like Elmer's Glue.

"I begged my father not to call me Suggie when I was in grade school because I was embarrassed," says the senior defender from Belleville, Ill. "But my teammates always called me Suggie. When I was a junior in high school I finally accepted it.

"Now I actually prefer it," she smiles.

Like her nickname, Seaman has undergone quite an evolution as a soccer player and as a person at WVU.

She is intelligent, focused and prepared, the kind of qualities coach Nikki Izzo-Brown yearns for in a defender.

The senior remembers entering WVU as a freshman, not yet understanding the kind of hard work required for her to be a top notch player.

Izzo-Brown instilled that ethic into her.

"Coach always says that intensity isn’t a light switch, you can’t just turn it on and off," says Seaman. "You have to play through all the minutes of the game and all two hours of practice at maximum intensity.

"She has taught me life lessons that I’ll take with me even when I leave here. She’s taught me if I want something badly enough, I have to work for it. If I do that, I will definitely achieve my dreams."

The intensity switch may have been off at times when Seaman was a budding freshman, but after her rookie and sophomore years as a role player, she decided that her goal was to be an everyday starter.

So Suggie turned the switch on.

She visited fiery strength and conditioning coach Mike Barwis frequently, building her muscle and endurance to a level that would make her one of the most consistent and, yet, underrated defenders in the BIG EAST.

Seaman exploded on the scene as a junior, starting all matches while leading a Mountaineer defense that allowed a miniscule 0.90 goals per game and posted six shutouts.

She even found a niche on offense, often playing up in the box on corner kicks and taking the majority of WVU’s penalty kicks. Seaman tallied four goals and four assists to lead all defenders with 12 points.

"It’s always fun to play some offense once and awhile," she says. "To have Nikki trust me to go up on corners and have a scoring chance with Rachel Kruze, who’s one of the best headers in the nation, it’s really nice."

The fact that West Virginia enjoyed its best season in team history in Seaman’s first year as an impact player was no coincidence.

In this, her final season, she is determined to capture the BIG EAST championship and finally advance in the NCAA tournament, something the WVU women’s soccer team has never done.

"Advancing in the NCAA tournament is definitely one thing I want to do before I graduate," says Seaman. "I’m sick of making it to the first round and then losing. We’re a better team than that."

The Mountaineers picked up an early loss this season on the road to Auburn, something that Suggie explains was truly a smack in the face.

"Auburn was a wake-up call for us," she says. "We realized teams aren’t going to just roll over for us. We knew right then that we can be one of the best teams in the nation; we just needed to work harder."

Being one of the country’s top programs means consistently defeating dominant opponents. For West Virginia, defeating Connecticut in the BIG EAST semifinals last year was one of three important humps to leap over. The second was this season, as the Mountaineers dropped then-No.10 Virginia for the second victory over a Top 10 team in the program’s history.

The third will take place on October 6, a highly anticipated rematch of last season’s regular season battle and BIG EAST final against Notre Dame in Morgantown.

Suggie insures that there is nothing sweet in store for the Irish this year.

"They tried to ruin our season last year by taking out Haire in our regular season game," says Seaman of a controversial collision between a Notre Dame attacker and WVU goalkeeper Melissa Haire, which resulted in an injury that kept her on the bench for the rest of the regular season.

"It was a blatant attempt to hurt our keeper. Thankfully Laura Finley stepped up and took her place, but it’s still personal."

Seaman's nickname is still not finished evolving. It has recently been shortened to "Suge" and humourously lengthened to "Suge Knight," after the rap pioneer and former president of Death Row Records.

While Seaman hasn't begun a career in hip-hop just yet, her life is similarly in constant progress.

After graduation, she plans to further her love of animals and become a veterinarian, adding she would love to attend graduate school in Colorado, or somewhere in the mountains, one day.

That is in the future, though, and Seamen still has that burning desire for one last season of soccer.

"It's crazy how it's coming to an end," she says. "This game has taught me everything about life and hardships, victories and defeats. It’s still a big rush every time I step onto the field."