by Mike Bruscas

"Soccer is the best sport in the world."

With those words, Sean Giudice puts the debate to rest. To support his theory, the Huskies' senior forward provides the following evidence:

"You don't have timeouts, so it's nonstop action," he says. "It's a players' game."

Giudice, who transferred to Washington from Cal State Fullerton following his sophomore season, figures to be one of the main scoring weapons for a Huskies team looking to bounce back from a disappointing 2002 season that saw the team miss the NCAA Championships for the first time since 1994.

Unimpressed by the Hollywood lifestyle, Giudice wanted out.

"I left Fullerton because I didn't really like life in L.A. that much," he says. "The UW, too, had its seven-year history of NCAA success, so that appealed to me as well."

Giudice's only apprehension was Seattle's infamous wet weather, yet he now sees through the age-old perception.

"I thought the weather up here was going to be bad, raining 60 days straight and such," he says. "Then this last year it didn't even rain! I brought an umbrella to class four times all year. I think it's a myth, but I like it because it keeps people away, so we have it all to ourselves."

It may have just seemed that every day was gray and dismal last fall, as the Huskies struggled through the nation's most difficult schedule. A dramatic victory over a talented Cal team, though, at least gave Giudice something to crow about to his friends from the Sunshine State.

"I scored the game-winning goal with three seconds left in double overtime on a header off a corner kick from Mike Chabala," Giudice recollects. "I have a lot of friends on that team, and if they would have beaten us that night they would have won the Pac-10."

This season its the Huskies who hope to be contending for the conference title late in the season, though will be entering the fray again with a mostly young team. One of just four seniors on the roster, Giudice wants to be a leader on the field, and take full advantage of his remarkably accurate shooting touch.

"Usually when I get a shot I'll probably score it," he says. "It's on the seniors to carry this team this season, so I want to lead by example and score more goals. To win, though, we'll have to play defense. Scoring goals can help you win games, but to win consistently enough to earn a championship you need to be able to shut teams down."

Giudice also hopes his experience can help the team's freshmen make smooth transitions from high school to the more strenuous college game, where cramping and fatigue are commonplace for even the most highly-conditioned athlete.

"It's hard being a freshman; it takes a year for most players to adapt," says Giudice, who battled through ankle injuries in high school. "When I got to college I learned that I had to play through amounts of pain that I never would have played through before. The college game is so much more fast-paced."

Although entering his final collegiate season, Giudice does not consider this year as the limelight of his soccer career. After graduating, the communications major is focused on playing professionally, and with the enormous worldwide popularity of the game, Giudice can see himself giving defenders fits in a variety of exotic locales. "Soccer is played on six continents, maybe even seven - people in Antarctica are probably down there playing!" he says with a laugh. "Why wouldn't you want to play pro, even if you didn't get paid much? I would love to learn a language, see another culture. I'd learn more from that than if I just sit here in my little bubble and relied on others to tell me what's going on in the world."

After all, the weather was great in Seattle. This much hype, at least, is true - Sean Giudice is a scoring force to be reckoned with.