Thousands of fans, who minutes before had jeered Cordeiro as he spoke, screamed their approval. “I think he’s going to make things right,” she said. Soccer president Carlos Cordeiro near the steps of City Hall. After a ticker-tape parade in New York City, Rapinoe endorsed then U.S. Chants of “Equal pay! Equal pay!” filled the Stade de Lyon after the team knocked off the Netherlands in the final. Soccer before the World Cup, and America’s victory galvanized a movement. The players had filed a gender-discrimination lawsuit against U.S. But I just wish Megan was different.” Denise replied, “Megan is just perfect the way she is.” The man grew angry and grabbed Denise’s arm before his wife and another couple settled him down.Īfter winning a second straight World Cup, Rapinoe and her teammates turned their attention to another goal: establishing equal pay with the men. “Men can be really abrasive about it,” says Denise. Patrons sought out Denise to voice their displeasure. Jack’s management took down a montage of her photos behind the bar. The blowback was immediate, violent, and visceral, Rachael recalls. “Everything looks different, 100%,” she says. To this day, Rapinoe believes that if white NFL players, especially fellow quarterbacks like Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers, had knelt to support Kaepernick, he’d still be playing. “It felt like this is what Colin was asking for,” Rapinoe says.
#WORDS TO FEEL THIS MOMENT PROFESSIONAL#
But her career came to a crossroads a year later when she became the first white professional athlete to kneel during the national anthem. World Cup win in Canada, the country’s first title since 1999. Rapinoe played a key role in the 2015 U.S.
She was the first to notch an Olimpico at the Olympics. won gold, Rapinoe scored two goals in an epic 4-3 semifinal victory over Canada, including a goal scored directly off a corner kick, known as an “Olimpico” in soccer circles. ultimately lost to Japan in the final.) At the London Olympics the next year, where the U.S. Her right-hand ink reads “Ma Barker”-a nickname her grandfather gave her, much to her mother’s chagrin, after the matriarch of a criminal gang, because of her tantrums.Īt the 2011 World Cup, Rapinoe’s cross to Wambach, this time in front of her plant leg, as per tradition, late in a quarter-final game against Brazil kept America’s chances alive. On Megan’s left hand is a tattoo reading “Mammers”-a nickname for Denise. “When she was convinced she needed something, and my parents wouldn’t give it to her, she would hold her breath until she passed out,” says her twin sister Rachael. Her father Jim worked as a building contractor her mother Denise was a waitress at Jack’s Grill, a local steak house, for 36 years she retired on June 30.
She grew up in Redding, Calif., a remote pocket of red in deep-blue California some 140 miles north of Sacramento. There’s freedom to that.”įrom her earliest days, Rapinoe was a tempestuous force. She hasn’t given a rat’s ass what people think. History has shown that women like her lead people over that line. “What Rapinoe has brought to the equation is the idea of we’re going to have to boldly disrupt. soccer player Julie Foudy, one of the stars of the 1999 World Cup–winning national team, whose victory helped bring women’s sports into the consciousness of many fans. “In the past, a lot of female athletes-in our generation, for sure-were told to sit down, to be quiet, to be grateful,” says former U.S. She’s the first soccer player so recognized. Last year, Joe Biden awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor. After Donald Trump criticized her during the 2019 World Cup, she scored against France and struck a now iconic pose that reminded the then President, and her vociferous critics, that she’s going absolutely nowhere. Rapinoe has also knelt in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick and led a protracted but ultimately successful battle against her own soccer federation to ensure equal pay for female players. state laws that ban transgender youth from playing on teams consistent with their gender identity. She has since worked tirelessly as an advocate for the LGBTQ+ community-she’s the brightest athletic star currently leading a fight against the proliferation of U.S. (Or, if misogyny or homophobia is your bag, worse.) More than a decade ago, she came out as gay, giving many other female sports figures permission to be more open about their sexuality.
whirling dervish of resistance who, depending on whom you ask, is either an unapologetic symbol of on-field excellence and off-field progress or a disrespectful heel. She’s one of the most talked-about American athletes of our time, a 5-ft. Rapinoe’s embrace of commotion has defined her career.
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