Soccer Mom Scores A Goal

(CBS)  The soccer mom is a modern American original, bringing to mind images of suburbia: after-school sports fans, equipment-filled minivans and the kind of loving support moms seem to have in limitless quantity. Here is one woman who has gone above and beyond the tradition as she lives out her very own American Dream.

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Donna Gagnon is the ultimate soccer mom. She makes soup for a sick teammate and is always there for her daughter Brandi. "She was always very supportive. No matter how poorly I did, as long as I tried my best it was always good enough for her," says Brandi Gagnon.

This season Donna Gagnon is more than team mother - she's a team player. At age 43, she has some new goals in life. Gagnon has returned to college to pursue a teaching degree at the University of Maine at Fort Kent. And this year she joined the school's soccer team alongside her daughter. "Two months ago if someone asked me 'do you play soccer' the terms 'are you crazy' actually would come out of my mouth," says Gagnon.

In fact, that was her first response, says Gagnon, when she was approached by her daughter to join the team. But Brandi Gagnon's persistence paid off. "She just seemed so, 'mom you've got to' and when your daughter needs you, you go," says Gagnon.

Now this soccer mom-turned-soccer player is learning to play a new role: On the field, it's the daughter who calls the shots. "Instead of her directing me from the sideline, I'm kind of helping her on the field," says Brandi Gagnon. "And I've gotten kind of used to calling her 'Donna' on the field because if I say 'Momma,' it's just weird."

This mother and daughter team says soccer has brought them closer than ever as both pursue their lifelong dreams. The younger Gagnon is studying to be a nurse, while her mother is about to achieve her childhood goal and become a teacher. "To be there for a student as a sounding board and a stepping stone for them, to guide them to the future, to their future, to our future; it's wonderful," says Donna Gagnon.

Wonderful, too, is to hear words of praise from your own daughter on a life - and a game - well played. "(I am) definitely proud of my mother," says Brandi Gagnon. Can't say anybody else's mother has done what she's done."