BIG NEWS, READERS: It is July, 2023. And that can only mean ONE thing. And no, I’m not talking about the release of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, or Guinea Pig Appreciation Day, or the 67th birthday of national treasure Tom Hanks (though all of those are blog-worthy in their own right). Obviously, I am talking about the kickoff of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup (cheers, screams, tears of joy)! That’s right, the time has finally come for the US Women to go for the threepeat. Like many of you, I was pumped to tune in to the USWNT’s first game of the tournament. I happened to be visiting my parents in Washington, and it went without saying that we would be spending Friday night watching the game. For the previous several weeks I’d listened to podcasts, scoured the roster, and watched nearly every video on US Soccer’s YouTube page (do you know Savannah DeMelo’s coffee order? Because I do.). My point: Sitting shoulder to shoulder with my mom on the couch, I was ready for this game.Before I go any further…I have a confession to make. I wasn’t going to mention it, but it feels too relevant to omit. It may be divisive. It will likely come as a shock. I humbly suggest you sit down. Ok, deep breath, here it goes…I am not exactly – nor have I ever been – what you would call a soccer person. I know, I KNOW, hold on! Give me a moment to defend myself. I grew up in a very sport-centric household. But: My parents were not soccer people. My two older siblings were not soccer people. Though athletically gifted in other ways, I was never a runner (a fact that remains true to this day). After a handful of years in soccer, I decided volleyball, with its emphasis on quick lateral movement, was more my scene. To be clear, I love our club and the work I am lucky to do within it. During my time at CRYSC, I’ve also grown a greater understanding of the game and a much deeper appreciation for the incredibly talented and hard-working people who play and coach it. Still, though, I would be lying if I said soccer was my go-to sport.“But Katie, why would you put this contentious factoid in writing for all of your members and staff to see?!” Fair question. Because, as I sat on the edge of the couch next to my mom, I was hit with a wave of puzzlement. There we were, two non-soccer people who cleared their Friday night schedules to watch a soccer match, chatting animatedly about the roster I had examined time and again over the past few weeks (Hot Take: Even injured, Becky Sauerbrunn should’ve gotten a spot. I said what I said!). …how did this happen??? Why was I so invested? It’s easy to point toward my love of competition, my immersion in the world of soccer, even my commitment to the athletes that I work with; while all of those are valid, I knew they weren’t the root. Then I started thinking. Growing up, how often was I able to watch a group of women playing sports at the highest level on my TV? Answer: Very rarely. I posed the same question to my mom and was (unsurprisingly) met with the same answer. Aside from the Olympics, the only women’s sports she saw on TV were largely individual and not exactly mainstream. My mom was a talented multi-sport athlete, went on to have one of the best high school coaching careers in the Pacific Northwest, and is, to this day, the ultimate competitor (you should see her on a pickleball court). And yet, growing up, she had very few women to watch. “Well, what women athletes did you look up to? Who were your female role models in sport?” She mentioned tennis great Chris Evert, and Olympians like Nadia Comaneci and Dorothy Hamill, but qualified that she wouldn’t label them as role models. More so, they were the most prominent women competitors at the time. Despite the increase in the visibility of women’s sports across our generations, my answer was similar. Growing up, I was an Olympic fanatic; my walls were adorned with the likes of Misty May and Kerri Walsh, Lindsey Vonn, and Shawn Johnson. Still, I wouldn’t call any of these women role models. After all, how much of a role model can someone really be when you only see them once every four years? That’s when it clicked. Why am I so invested in the USWNT? Because even now, with my non-soccer athletic career in the rearview, I am hungry for women role models in sports. Because watching these women from all over the world come together and compete at an incredibly high level in front of over 70 thousand fans (not to mention the important work they do off of the field) is beyond inspiring. So it got me thinking. What, exactly, is the impact of role models in athletics? What help can they offer us along our own journeys? Let’s find out.
