Anteater athletics is family, both as a whole and within each program. The women's soccer family is as tight-knit as they come extending far beyond their time on the soccer field. Few alums to the program connect closer to family than Mar Moreno-Araiza.

As a young girl in Mexico, Mar Rodriguez was very close with her mother and sisters. She attended school there up until third grade before coming to the United States where she connected to the game of soccer. Her high school coach was very helpful getting her into club soccer with Wolfpack and getting her in front of college coaches.

"I don't know who called coach Juniper, but someone called him he went to watch me one day. That day, I was fortunate and blessed with scoring three goals. I don't remember scoring that often, but that particular day I scored three times, so that was pretty cool, and he was sold."

The shy Mar let her actions speak loud for her cementing her ability in many coaches' minds especially UCI head coach Scott Juniper. She joined the team in 2009 and made an instant impact playing 45 games as a freshman and sophomore and scoring 11 times including four game-winners in each season. The program flew into the stratosphere with their magical NCAA run in 2010 and returning to the tournament the next year, Mar's junior season of 2011.

"Playing for UCI, I don't know what to say. I loved it. We did really well my second year there. We were a group of people that wanted to do well, we wanted to work hard. We played for each other. My freshman and sophomore year were memorable times in my life. I don't have anything negative to say about my experience at UCI."

Mar found some success internationally as well getting a look from the Mexican National Team. She tried out for the squad as a senior in high school, and that was enough for them to extend an invite to a try out in Texas. She was encouraged to follow up with them, but did not at first.

"I was very shy, and I didn't feel like I fit in with the team so I didn't pursue it. Coach Juniper called me in one time and he said 'you know, the Mexican National Team coach called and he said that he really wants you in the team', and I was very surprised. This was new information to me. Coach Juniper really persuaded me into it and that's when I played for the Mexican National Team."

Mar joined the squad for the under-20 Women's World Cup in Germany breaking through as one of the first Anteaters to join a national squad in a major tournament. She made a pair of group stage starts where the squad scored a pair of draws with Nigeria and Japan and defeated England, 1-0, to earn a spot in the knockout round where she started once again in a loss to South Korea. Her journey with the national team was going well, and she was returning to UCI for her junior season, but all the while she was still dealing with the transition to university life.

"It's hard to put it in words because I felt like I was different than the rest of the roster because I had come from a low-income community. My first language was Spanish, and in my high school, we were predominantly Hispanic and Mexican. So coming to UCI was a culture shock to me."

A campus of around 30,000 undergraduates was a huge jump to the reserved Mar, and even a place she felt more comfortable like the soccer field was an adjustment.

"Even though I was on the team, I wasn't very involved. I wouldn't really talk to the girls and I didn't feel like I had something to relate with them. I was on the side listening to whatever they were experiencing because it was all very new to me."

A moment that really stood out to her came in her sophomore year, something that was very important to her athletic and professional careers.

"I remember my sophomore year going in and it was the first quarter, and I was crying and told coach Juniper I can't do this, this is too much for me. Soccer is too much, school is too much, I'm not even supposed to be here, I wasn't supposed to go to college, it's all too much. He was like 'I'm not letting you quit. You're going to stay, you're doing just fine, you're getting good grades.' I remember that stood out for me because I was scared to death. I was just praying to God like 'I think I'm quitting, God. Today's the day.' And every day thinking today I'm quitting. I felt like God really showed up"

Mar felt that was proven through coach Juniper and through her teammate, Kala Gabler, someone that would stay up at all hours to help her with her writing and papers for class. A real motivation for Mar who really hadn't planned on a career after she finished school.

"I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my career. First off, I didn't think I was going to go to college so once I was there I thought just one day at a time, don't think about the future just think about completing this. I was always fascinated in human behavior so I went into sociology because we learned about social problems that to me were fascinating. I liked to learn about that, but I didn't know that after that I was going to pursue a Master's.

Mar had no plans to pursue a Master's. She was trying to finish and avoid doing more school. Completing four years of college was already a huge deal to her. Her athletic counselor at the time, Jessica Barnes, asked her about graduate school and Mar could only laugh. She was already jumping into work, taking a year off and working at a non-profit as a case manager.
Mar said she even applied to a graduate program at Cal State Long Beach and had everything ready to go, but she didn't have any professional clothes.

"So I went in jeans to the interview for the Master's program, and they just disqualified me right away. No thank-you-no-thank-you. I was mortified thinking it's not for me, I'm not going to be a therapist."

She continued her work with therapists at the non-profit and realized how much she wanted to be one herself.

"All this time, I was trying to figure out how to avoid school, but if I wanted to become a therapist, I had to go back. So I worked as a case manager and then for people with disabilities, and through all of that I applied at Cal State Fullerton."

Her second try and grad school went a little better, and soon she was working through Cal State Fullerton's program studying for social work. With a Master's in social work in hand, her focus was now clinical and more about therapy.

Mar's work took her from domestic violence agency, Casa de la Familia, to another non-profit giving therapy to school-based children in Long Beach working community mental health.

"I did that for two or three years before I became a wraparound therapist which is the same thing for more intense subjects that aren't in group homes, kids in probation or kids that have a DCFS case that are involved with Department of Children and Family Services. I worked with the program for six months before getting licensed so now I'm a licensed clinical social worker currently at a health clinic at La Habra, Friends of Family."

Mar and her crew at Friends of Family Health Center has gathered experience treating families with a holistic approach for the purpose of increasing their well-being while extending her range of areas she can help in a common interest to empower individuals find their own strengths and abilities to create healthy lives.

"It's kind of all encompassing, but I've dealt mainly with major depression, anxiety, and mostly trauma. The population I was at before, a lot of the children experienced trauma or adverse childhood experiences. In this clinic I'm at, they're more mild-to-moderate, but nevertheless I definitely continue seeing people that have gone through a lot of trauma."

After sticking out her experience in college at UC Irvine and with the soccer team, she's reached a very fulfilling point in her life. With the passing of her mom, someone she had always been very close with, it's strengthened her family bond with her sisters even more. The emphasis she puts on family, and with the population that she provides services to, Mar says it's changed her life.

"I'm hoping to plant a little seed in their life, too. For other people, it may not be very exciting, but for me it is. I hear so many different stories every single day, and it's impactful to me as a person. It's fulfilling to me. I'm a mother now so it's always seemed like my life is not that exciting, but my excitement is being a therapist, a mom, a wife, a family member, I've always been a person of family."