How did my father end up at the same field where I was playing? I never found out. Maybe he saw that a Tri-Cities soccer team was scheduled for a game and thought there was a chance I’d be there. Maybe it was happenstance; perhaps one of the reasons my father had settled by that playing field was that he took joy in seeing young people play sports. Maybe it was just fate.
II.
That sky ball I let in while my dad was watching didn’t bother me. I wasn’t a goalkeeper. I was just goofing around, doing my coach a favor when he wanted to let the regular keeper out to play in the field after we had established a healthy lead. And that lead was usually because of my goal-scoring. I was a standout field player. When I was thirteen, I went an hour north to Moses Lake for tryouts for the Eastern Washington Olympic Development Program. Olympic development programs target the top young soccer players in each age group by area. The road to the women’s national team begins in youth ODP. But that road can be an expensive one: ODP costs a lot of money—for travel, uniforms, and coaching. But I wasn’t thinking about any of that when I went to Moses Lake. All the best players from the east side of the Cascades were there, their registration numbers written in black Sharpie on their arms and legs. Looking around, I realized how many strong players were in my age group, and I started to get a little worried that I might not make the team. For one of the first times in my life, I felt insecure on the soccer field.
There was a shortage of goalkeepers—there almost always is. Talented athletes—the kind who make up the ODP programs—are reluctant to commit to the position. Goalkeeping isn’t glamorous. It’s tough and stressful and thankless. And in youth soccer, players see that the less athletic kids are stuck in goal, creating a stigma about goalkeeping. But some of the coaches evaluating the ODP players had already seen me play the position. At a club tournament in Oregon when our regular goalkeeper was injured, I had filled in, and I was good at it. I was a strong athlete, and playing basketball had honed my hand-eye coordination and leaping skills—traits that not all soccer players possessed.
“Hope Solo,” a coach called.
I came over to him. “We’d like to take a look at you with the goalkeepers.”
I was game—I just wanted to make the team. I batted away shots, dove to make saves, and easily made my team. But then an older team—three levels up—decided they wanted me for a backup goalkeeper and cherry-picked me off my age-group team. That was flattering. So there I was, a scrawny little thirteen-year-old, playing on an under-sixteen team with girls who were much more mature than I was. Amy Allmann, a former national team goalkeeper who was the coach of the regional ODP team, didn’t think I was anything special the first time she saw me play. Then she realized I was playing against girls who were three years older. All of a sudden, she was intrigued.
The older players were sweet to me. They did my hair and made me wear lip gloss, and we listened to Shania Twain’s “Any Man of Mine” over and over and over again on the CD player. I was their baby sister, just a lanky little thing among the tall trees. I liked the status of playing above my age group, and I was good in goal because I was athletic and fearless. But still, I didn’t want to be a goalkeeper. I wanted to touch the ball, to attack. Now I stood in the net, watching the action running away from me, waiting for my turn to do something.
My family hated watching me play goalkeeper and let everyone—coaches, players, other parents—know it, complaining loudly. My mother and grandmother thought I was being robbed of my true talent. They were also convinced I was going to get hurt in a collision with girls who had already reached their full maturity.
Their concern was valid. The first time I played with my new ODP team, I replaced the starting goalkeeper, who had just suffered a concussion in a collision in the net. As she was carted away in an ambulance I pulled on my oversize goalkeeper jersey and giant gloves and went into battle. My mother and grandmother covered their eyes. I was nervous, but I prided myself on my toughness and ability to rise to a challenge. And I did.
After that, I started living a dual soccer life. For my club and eventually my high school teams, I was always a forward, a goal scorer my teammates relied upon to win the game. But at the ODP level, I was always a goalkeeper, the one my teammates needed to save the game. The two roles kept me interested and challenged and also helped my soccer development. I learned both ends of the field. Knowing how a forward attacks is an advantage for a goalkeeper. It was as if I had a double identity—my Richland life and my expanding outside world as a successful goalkeeper.
III.
I wasn’t the only one surprised to see my father at a game. Marcus went to Yakima one summer to play in a summer-league baseball tournament. He looked in the stands, and there was Dad. It was the first time Marcus had seen him in several years.
My father invited Marcus to spend the night with him in a hotel, and Marcus’s best friend, Dominic Woody, came along. My dad had been Dominic’s Little League coach, and Dominic loved him.
In those rainy woods in Seattle, my father had told me that he would try to stay in touch. And he attempted to be true to his word. He called on our birthdays. Once
