Sept. 8, 2017
By: Margaret Hurt
When Lindsay Portela started riding horses she wasn't the most naturally gifted rider in the arena, but she was often the hardest worker. Raised by parents who trained horses professionally, riding became a family affair for Portela and the time she spent at her barn was time spent with her family.
"My mom's really, really great and she has a lot of natural talent for it," Portela said. "I don't have that same natural talent. I have to work quite a bit harder."
The Florida native's hard work paid off throughout her riding career, but when she began to look at colleges and equestrian teams, Auburn was not in the picture.
Originally, Portela had planned on attending a school as far away from home as possible. It was the advice of long-time friend and then member of Auburn's equestrian team, Dottie Grubb, who convinced Portela to consider coming to Auburn.
All it took was one visit and Portela was convinced Auburn was the place for her. Having an uncle who was a former kicker at Auburn, the environment was not entirely unfamiliar territory to Portela, and after feeling like she fit in with group of girls on the team she needed no convincing.
"I kind of wanted to experience Auburn on my own and not really hold that part of it, but it was kind of undeniable once I got here," Portela said of her ties to the university. "Auburn was the only official visit I took. On the recruit trip, I verbally committed that weekend and was gung-ho about Auburn and never looked back."
Portela rode multiple different horses throughout her riding career before college, so when a spot opened up on the starting lineup her freshman year, she was ready to compete.
"I felt needed, so that was a great thing for me, but it was also nerve wracking," Portela said.
Despite her nerves, Portela proved herself worthy of a consistent spot on the Flat roster, and her sophomore year was selected as a first team All-American in Flat. The pressure and nerves that came from competing allowed Portela to tap into her competiveness and win when her teammates needed her to.
"I wanted my team to realize that I wanted to go in there and win for them because it's not just about me, it's never been about me," Portela said. "So I think once I was able to have people depend on me that's really when I was able to excel."
Portela's freshman year the team won the Southern Equestrian Conference title, and her sophomore year ended with another SEC title and a national title as well. After a disappointing junior season, Portela and her senior class came back and won their second national championship in 2013.
After graduating in 2013, Portela had every intention of working in sports, but after a year with the Atlanta Falcons in event marketing and special events, she realized she wanted to pursue a career that was centered on helping others. Portela returned to her Auburn home to be the equestrian team's graduate assistant for two years while she earned her Master's degree in clinical mental health counseling.
"It's probably one of the best decisions I've ever made," Portela said. "It was so interesting to see the academic side versus the athletics."
Portela recently finished her first year in Auburn's doctoral program for counselor education and supervision, and couldn't be happier about her decision to come back to The Plains.
"It think it's really cool because it's something that I can do to merge my two passions, which are athletics and counseling," Portela said.
Looking to the future Portela hopes she can incorporate research on student-athletes into her work and how counseling, injuries and mental health affects them.
With a lot of time to reflect on her years as a Tiger, Portela knows first hand what it takes to be on an equestrian team, and also what it takes to run it. As the team GA, Portela saw how she as a senior impacted the freshmen she led, who were then seniors themselves. The group of freshmen she invested so much of her time and energy in went on to lead Auburn equestrian to its fourth national title in 2016.
"For me to be able to say that I won as an athlete and I won as a GA - I don't think that there's really anything that can compare to that experience and understanding the impact that I had on girls," Portela said.
To this day Portela credits a great deal of her personal growth and professional skills to the time she spent as a student-athlete at Auburn. Her time management skills and ability to keep herself and others accountable has allowed her to succeed in her post-graduate season of life, and she continues to support the team in any way possible.
"I'm lucky enough to still be in Auburn so I'm out at the meets all the time, and I think sometimes people get sick of me but I'm not going anywhere," Portela said, "I really feel a sense of pride in Auburn equestrian and seeing where they're going and what they've accomplishedÃÆ'¢Ãƒ¢'¬¦it means something to say that I was an Auburn equestrian and that I graduated from this team."