On Capuano's plaque: The first three-year captain in program history and just the second player in program history to earn first-team All-Ivy honors three times, she helped lead the Quakers to their first outright Ivy League Championship in 2007. She started 63 of the 65 matches in which she played across her career and recorded 14 goals and 4 assists from her midfield position while also dominating in the air. As a junior, she was a third-team NSCAA Scholar All-America selection. As a senior, she was a semifinalist for the prestigious Lowe's Senior CLASS Award and the recipient of the Association of Alumnae Father's Trophy. She also represented the United States of America while playing on the U-20, U-21 and U-23 Women's National Soccer Teams.

by Terry Toohey
 
The only place where you will find Natalie Capuano's name among the individual statistical categories of the Penn women's soccer record book is in the year-by-year goal scoring leaders.
 
Capuano—who now goes by her married name, Natalie Federle—scored a modest five goals as a senior in 2008, but that was enough to share the team lead with Kristin Kaiser.
 
Putting up big individual numbers was never Capuano's thing; she scored 14 goals and had four assists in her four-year career wearing the Red and Blue. Yet her value to the team and program could not be measured in individual statistics.
 
"Everything about her screams 'winner,'" said Darren Ambrose, Capuano's coach at Penn who is now the head coach at Vanderbilt. "At the time she was the most competitive player I had ever coached. Losing wasn't an option. She was incredibly hard on herself. She also was the toughest kid I ever coached. She was 5-foot-2 but she played like she was 8-feet tall. You can't teach that kind of stuff.
 
"She has a never-say-die attitude, which is why we named her a captain because people will follow that and follow they did. She captained us for our first sole Ivy League championship. Natalie helped people to standards and wasn't afraid to confront people when they didn't, and I think that's the hardest thing to do when you're a young player. She learned in 2006 when we struggled in her sophomore year what it would take to be successful. She didn't shy away from it. She's a winner and she treats people well."
 
The numbers back up Ambrose's statement. Penn had a winning record in each of her four seasons and compiled an overall winning percentage of 61.7 percent during her career.
 
Oh yeah, and as Ambrose said, the Quakers won their first outright Ivy League title during her junior season.
 
"She's the ultimate competitor," said former teammate Robin Watson.
 
Watson learned about Capuano's tenacity very early.
 
"She was a freshman and I was a senior," Watson said. "I was 5-9, a big defender, a center back and there was this big lofty ball coming to me in practice one day from some long kick. I was very used to playing the role of heading that sucker out. All of the sudden this small little girl jumps up and hits that ball with her head. I was like, 'Where did that come from? You're like 4-9.' It was her mentality. She was fierce. She showed no fear and that she could compete with anybody."
 
Capuano's grit and determination enabled her to accomplish a pair of firsts in the history of the program. In addition to leading the Quakers to their first outright Ivy League crown in 2007, Capuano was the first three-time captain in program history and still the only player to hold that honor.
 
She also was a three-time first-team All-Ivy League selection and a second-team pick as a freshman. Capuano also was a three-time NSCAA all-region selection, second team as a junior and third team as a sophomore and senior. She started in 63 of the 65 games she played in her career.
 
For those accomplishments, Capuano is part of the Penn Athletics Hall of Fame Class XIII.
 
"This means everything," Capuano said. "It's just an incredible honor to be recognized in this way. Even being considered for this is special. I'm just so proud of it and excited to be a part of the Hall of Fame."
 
Capuano credited her parents, Gina and Ciro, for instilling in her the qualities that would make her an outstanding player at the club, high school and collegiate levels as well as a three-sport star at Sun Valley High School in suburban Philadelphia. They signed her up for soccer when she was five. Her father worked three jobs yet still found the time to drive his daughter an hour each way when she played for the Langhorne Strikers. When the team moved to Cabrini University in Radnor and became FC Pennsylvania Strikers, that trip was shortened to 30 minutes each way.
 
Meanwhile her mom stayed home and took care of her siblings, Nick, Marissa and Gabrielle. 
 
"They pushed me to be the best version of myself," Capuano said of her parents. "I think they saw that I had some potential and challenged me, even in the difficult times, to stay focused on what it was that I wanted to accomplish. To be able to give me those opportunities, traveling to showcases, they gave up a lot to enable me to do that.
 
"They were very supportive of me going to Penn. It's a tough school academically. There are a lot of expectations athletically and academically. They've been a constant source of support through my entire life. I'm just so appreciative of that. They worked together to allow me to develop into a better player and have opportunities that I don't think I otherwise would not have had if I didn't play on that team."
 
Capuano called being named captain three times and winning the Ivy League title as a junior in 2007 the highlights of her career at Penn. Back then, coaches nominated players for captain and the players voted on those nominees.
 
Ambrose said he selected Capuano as one of the nominees to be captain because the team was building for the future and Ambrose wanted an underclass person to be one of those team leaders to help the Quakers move forward.
 
"I think the decision was made in the spring of my freshman year," Capuano recalled. "I was surprised to find out that I was named a captain. I was caught off-guard, honestly. It's unheard of to be recognized like that going into your sophomore year. To be considered for it and to be given it by my teammates and coaches really meant a lot. I was excited for the opportunity."
 
The only accomplishment that topped being named captain was winning the Ivy League title. The Quakers went 6-1-0 in the league in 2007. They clinched a share of the title with a 1-0 victory over archrival Princeton in overtime at Rhodes Field and then defeated Harvard, 1-0, in Cambridge, Mass. to wrap up the outright crown seven days later.
 
Ambrose used a unique bit of psychology to motivate his team to the championship. He equated the road to the championship to climbing Mount Everest. You start at base camp, that's the preseason, and work your way up the mountain with different levels along the way. It's a struggle. At times if feels impossible, but you press on. The Quakers reached the final hurdle in the regular-season finale against the Crimson.
 
"I had one question for them when we played Harvard," Ambrose said. "I said, 'There's a ridge at the top and only one team can get there. Who's it going to be, us or Harvard?' That was the rallying cry."
 
The motivation worked.
 
"There were goals for each step of the season, and we only focused on the objectives for each stage," Capuano said. "We didn't look beyond that. We didn't get too far ahead of ourselves. It helped us stay disciplined and ultimately achieve our goal because we took it one day and one step at a time."
 
To commemorate that climb, Ambrose had a poster made up with the team picture, a photo of Mount Everest and an index card for each step along the way with Ivy Champs at the top. Ambrose has his hanging on his wall in his office in Nashville.
 
As for Capuano's poster, it's hanging in her house in Garnet Valley, where she resides with her husband, Tom Federle and their three children Vincent (7), Christian (5) and Leo (2).
 
"I definitely still have it," she said.
 
She is still involved with soccer as a volunteer youth coach for her sons' teams. Vincent plays for Brandywine Youth Club and Christian is getting his start in the sport with the Bethel Bombers.
 
Capuano also is a Senior Legal Counsel for Airgas, a company based in Radnor that supplies industrial, medical and specialty gases. She focuses in on commercial contracts.
 
She still stays in touch with Ambrose and a number of her college teammates.
 
"Looking back on it, I'm just very grateful for all the relationships and friendships I made during my time at Penn," Capuano said. "It was a wonderful time."