Balancing Two Sports Just a Drop in the Ocean for Rideout

What’s in a name? asked William Shakespeare.  

With a name like Ocean Rideout, you might expect the Viking senior to be surfing in the warm waters off her Riverside, Calif., home in southern California.

Instead, she is completing four successful years as a standout track and field athlete and as a forward on PSU’s women’s soccer team. And, while she earned a starting forward spot on the soccer team and honorable mention as a forward in the Big Sky Conference this last season, it’s been track and field where she’s really made her mark in the PSU record books.

Recruited to play soccer at PSU, she started dabbling in track and field her sophomore year. In addition to soccer and other sports, she’d entered in some track and field events, mostly for fun, in high school.

But she pursued soccer in college “mostly because, in high school, everyone told me if I wanted to be great at a sport, I needed to hone in on one, and I chose soccer. I got recruited to do club track, but my folks had me in club soccer,” Rideout said.

“I chose to pursue soccer because I love soccer. I chose to pursue track because it just happened circumstantially, to be honest,” said Rideout.

She started doing track in her sophomore year at PSU just to help the team make NCAA eligibility requirements. I would come out for one or two meets a year and run, but I never trained or practiced with the team. They offered to feed us, so I was pretty sold,” she said with a laugh. 

This year, a new coaching staff told her that if she wanted to continue in track and field, she’d have to train with the team.

“I got bored [after her soccer career finished in the fall] and figured, why not go out and make some new friends. I started training with track in January.” She only wanted to do the long jump “because I didn’t want to run,” which is ironic because she ended up this season as part of the first Viking 4x100 relay team to place among the first eight spots at the Big Sky Outdoor Championships since 2017.

Rideout hadn’t long jumped before, but she was just doing track for fun and wanted to learn something new.

Her coach made her run to get into shape for the long jump, “and they discovered I was actually decently fast, so they entered me in running events along with the long jump.”

Her favorite track and field events are long jump and javelin…”I also like shot put, but shot put does not like me, unfortunately.”

She started long jump around the first of this year, javelin and shot put a few weeks ago. With that range, Rideout was entered this year into the heptathlon. Her recent first-ever try at the event netted her a ninth all-time PSU ranking.

That was at the Big Sky Outdoor Championships this year, where Rideout set a number of historic finishes. She was the first Viking to place in the top eight in the heptathlon since 2019; the long jump since 2017; and the 4x100 relay since 2016 (along with teammates Sienna Rosario, Olivia Jolivette and Savannah Beasley).

Still, soccer was her first love…and her ticket to a university degree.

The Rideouts are an athletic family, she said. Mom and Dad (Katasha and Reichard Rideout) were high school athletes and continued in dance and coaching following. Her brother Xavier “set the tone for me” by playing several sports. A sister, Breeja, “unfortunately doesn’t have an athletic bone in her body, but she’s also the most intelligent person I know.”

Sports are important to her family, she said, “as a means of survival. Some of them were very talented but couldn’t expand because they didn’t have the privilege to pursue sports without also having to work full time, care for their families and pay for their education.”

So, her PSU scholarship was very important…and without her unusual name, it might not have happened.

Being from a small high school, Rideout hadn’t drawn much attention from college coaches.

“I actually had a very difficult time getting recruited. I started playing competitive soccer pretty late and my club wasn’t super big, so it was hard to get noticed. I only got offered from a D2 school and was looking into playing for Idaho but wasn’t offered a scholarship. I needed a scholarship to even be able to go out of state for school”, said Rideout.   

In 2021, an email landed in the Viking soccer coaching staff inbox.

“Something about the name Ocean Rideout was simply too compelling to ignore. We discovered Ocean was a four-sport athlete with a 4-plus GPA alongside a full slate of extracurricular activities,” recalled Whitney.

When she got recruited by PSU, “the coaches called me a ‘diamond in rough’, the team felt like people I had already known for a while and I like the city life…ultimately, PSU was the full package. I loved the culture of the team. I loved how it felt like the coaches actually wanted me there, and I loved the team culture. And, importantly, it paid for my education.”    

Rideout admitted her name has had some advantages, making her stand out being one of them. She describes it as a “hand-me-down” in that her parents initially planned it for her older brother, but changed his name to Xavier at the last minute. So, when they decided to have another kid (me), I got it.”

Her PSU soccer success was “built during practice, in the weight room, film sessions and in every unglamorous detail of what it takes to compete at this level. Ocean understood something early that separates good plays from great ones: the game is won in the margins. Rehab. Recovery. Sleep. Nutrition. Attitude. Technical refinement. She treated none of it as optional,” Whitney added.

She’s scored some game-winning goals, which she lists as her soccer highlights. “I got on SportsCenter for a game winner, so that was pretty cool.”

In track and field this year… “Finding I got seventh in the heptathlon at conference was awesome because my goal was eighth place. I would also say going into the heptathlon day two in dead last place (16th) and then finishing seventh was very rewarding. At the end of day one, I was brutally humbled.”

Rideout’s impact hasn’t been limited to growing athletic ability.

In soccer, “Ocean arrived as a talented athlete and she’s leaving as a culture maker. She has embodied a growth mindset, continually challenging her limits and inviting her teammates to do the same. She helped create a culture grounded in leadership, teamwork and an unwavering passion for the game,” said Whitney.

Although at Arlington High School she was class president three times and Director of Spirit for one, along with soccer, volleyball, cross country and track, balancing two university-level sports and academics has been a challenge.

“It’s difficult balancing work, school, family and academics…and I’m from California, so I call home a lot. I’ve definitely sacrificed a lot of social hangouts with friends. It’s rewarding, though, because I do love competing and I’m usually surrounded by my friends,” she said. Having said that, it’s important to note that at PSU she’s also been involved with an intramural volleyball team (Athlete Students at PSU) and is part of the Latin Dance Club and takes dance classes on campus.

Still, Rideout will graduate Summa Cum Laude this spring with a 3.96 cumulative GPA In Criminology and Criminal Justice with a minor in Law and Legal Studies. She plans to take the LSAT for law school.

She’s considering using an extra year of track and field eligibility, “but that will depend on the financial situation. I started throwing javelin and shot put about a month and some change ago. I like how short and technical the events are. The heptathlon was the first time I ever had competed in throwing a javelin and shot put, and I would definitely love to do it again if I could… maybe not the shot put because that was really embarrassing. Still fun, though.”

And, regarding that idea of surfing in the warm Southern California Pacific Ocean. She didn’t try that, but “I did try swimming/water polo (in high school), but quit after a week. The water was too cold.”