Thoughts on the Rapinoe Legacy
Love her or hate her, she's influenced the conversation in a way few have
Sometimes those of us who have worked in domestic soccer don’t realize how few Americans pay attention to the sport or know its leading figures.
Once at a conference of sports executives when I made a comment comparing Landon Donovan favorably as an athlete to NFL players, I was roundly mocked privately I later learned.
I’ve made the mistake thinking people knew who Landon Donovan or Michael Bradley was, often getting blank looks back. I’d even say until recently the vast majority of Americans did not know who Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo were. This sport has been far more obscure in the US than those of us who have existed in the vacuum where our world largely revolved around it.
As successful as the USWNT had long been, even the likes of Mia Hamm and Brandi Chastain only had a fleeting moment of fame before the sport returned to relative obscurity in the larger scheme of things. But Megan Rapinoe changed all that.
This point was reinforced on Saturday, when she announced her retirement effective at the end of the NWSL season. Not only did my phone light up with alerts from NEWS sites but local stations in south Florida included it in their nightly newscasts - and not during the sports segment.
Reality is this- Megan Rapinoe is in no particular order, a soccer star, a pop celebrity, an influencer, and an important ideological political figure.
Photo credit: By Jamie Smed from Cincinnati, Ohio - Megan Rapinoe, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63410974
I have experienced her impact first hand as friends of mine who couldn’t give a hoot about soccer either started watching NWSL and USWNT because of her or decided they HATED soccer even more because of her.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Beyond The 90' to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.