And Rapinoe thanks her parents for never forcing her to play the sport that she loved - and still does.Īlthough, such as myself, some readers might struggle to relate to or connect with the superstar through most of the book, the chapter titled “Brian” will hit close to home for many.
For years, every Saturday started at four in the morning with packing cleats and socks into the minivan and driving hours to train with their team. Even now, having won the 2019 Best FIFA’s Women’s Player Award, Rapinoe writes that she has “probably never dominated a team like I did that team of small boys in the early 1990s.”įrom that first season, Rapinoe and her twin, Rachael, lived and breathed soccer, and she makes that overly clear, with little of her adolescence mentioned outside of the sport. Growing up, she quickly became a soccer standout, first playing on an all-boys youth team because it was the only local team. Rapinoe traces her athletic and activist aspirations back to her childhood in a rural town near Redding, California.
In fact, 35-year old Rapinoe’s recently published memoir, “One Life”, focuses more on her transition from insouciant soccer player to a conscientious athlete using her platform to promote activism - mincing few words along the way, telling the reader that “Given the breaks I’ve had, speaking out seems like the least I can fucking do.” This 240 page story is one of extraordinary skill meeting extreme dedication, and by the end of the book, Rapinoe burns one question into readers’ minds: what are you going to do with your One Life? Nearly a decade later, on her 30th birthday, Rapinoe celebrated with her teammates on the field after winning the 2015 Women’s World Cup.īut that’s not the whole story. In her own words, “When we won 3-1 that night at Merlo Field, we were so over the moon you would think we had won the World Cup.”
On a Friday night roughly 15 years ago, Portland Pilot Megan Rapinoe scored two goals in the Women’s NCAA Soccer Tournament quarterfinal and predicted her future.
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