Hope Solo

Sports Illustrated will announce its choice for Sportsman of the Year on Dec. 2. Here’s one of the nominations for that honor by an SI writer. For more essays, click here.

In the last 20 months Hope Solo, goalkeeper for the U.S. women’s national soccer team, suffered the loss of her best friend, who was hit by a car while running, and her father, who suffered a fatal heart attack. She was replaced as America’s goalkeeper on the eve of a World Cup semifinal match with Brazil and then was banished from the team for criticizing that decision. When allowed to return to the squad later under a new coach, she was treated as an outcast; most teammates wouldn’t sit with her at meals.

The worst spell of Solo’s life, however, turned positive this past summer. Back between the pipes for the national team, she made save after save in a stirring 1-0 victory over Brazil that gave the Americans the Olympic gold medal. Her stop of a point-blank Marta shot in the 72nd minute was the play of the tournament, and it was the kind of save that previous U.S. coach Greg Ryan questioned she could make when he pulled her from the lineup at the World Cup.

“It’s like a storybook ending,” Solo said after the Olympics. “It’s something you see in Hollywood or in fairy tales. My life doesn’t play out like that all the time.”

Happy endings alone don’t merit the honor of Sportsperson of the Year. But behind Solo’s story of redemption is a more layered one about women’s sports in general. As my colleague Grant Wahl wrote before the Olympics, the Solo affair raised many questions: “Did Solo’s outburst violate a team-first ethos that was a cornerstone of the U.S. women’s appeal and success, or was that mentality naive in the first place? Did her punishment fit the crime? And would it even have been imposed on a men’s team?”

The answers Solo provided with her star turn in Beijing have moved the women’s game to a better place. No longer will the national team’s success be anchored to the notion of camaraderie, as if friendship matters more than foot skills. After the 1999 World Cup and throughout the Golden Girls era of Mia, Brandi and Julie, we were led to believe that, but it was a selective rendering. The U.S. won because they had the most talent and they played as a team. The “friends” angle was just that, an angle.

There is little doubt that Solo’s punishment did not fit the crime; some teammates admit that now. But the way she handled her penance, by working on her game and not worrying about the love of her teammates, deserves respect. There are conflicting personalities in every locker room, and not getting along off the field shouldn’t preclude a team from winning on it, especially not when the prize is a World Cup title or a gold medal.

Before the Olympics, Solo said: “We don’t have to be friends to respect what somebody does on the field. I truly hope women’s sports can get to that point.”

The women’s national soccer team has, and for that we can thank Hope Solo, a deserving Sportsperson of the Year.

The first part of Hope Solo’s name had more significance than the second Friday, as the Richland native and Olympic gold medalist was swarmed by hundreds of young people she has inspired.

“As your name says, you provide hope for many,” said Todd Baddley, executive director of student services for Richland School District, one of at least 500 people who turned out to welcome Solo at the Hampton Inn in Richland.

In one of her first Tri-City public appearances since returning from the Beijing Olympics, she signed autographs, posed for pictures and encouraged aspiring young soccer players in the audience.

“You’ll have the most fun when you play your hardest, when you play with your heart, when you give everything you have to give,” she told them.

Solo spoke to a packed house in the hotel’s Columbia Pointe Room. The event started at 3 p.m., and she still was receiving fans three hours later. Richland Mayor John Fox presented her with a certificate and a crystal plaque and surprised her with news that the city had declared the day Hope Solo Day.

She also fielded questions for about 10 minutes, and the young people didn’t waste the chance to pick her brain about how to become as successful as she is and how to deal with stumbles along the way.

“Have I ever gotten kicked in the face with the ball?” Solo said, repeating one of the questions. “I think every goalkeeper has, so yes, I have.”

One 14-year-old girl asked two questions and had good reason to, because she has a lot in common with Solo, including a first name. Hope Butler plays soccer at Hermiston High School and has played goalie for several years. She brought her goalie jersey and joked that maybe she could trade with Solo.

“I just want to be like her,” Butler said.

Butler asked Solo how she deals with frustration when she’s scored on and what she does when someone is driving the ball down the field to try to score on her. Butler said her own habit is to bounce on her knees and tap her fingers as the other team’s shooter approaches.

Solo said she gets very angry when she’s scored on, even when it’s a great shot that’s hard to defend.

“You learn to channel that and turn that energy into something positive,” Solo said. “For me, I get more focused.”

She recalled in the Olympics, she surrendered two goals in the first two minutes of the first game, and her team lost to Norway, 2-0. She realized afterward she didn’t have time to feel sorry for herself because her team needed her.

In the gold medal game against Brazil, Solo made six saves and got the team into overtime before the U.S. won 1-0.

Friday’s homecoming was the latest step in a long journey for Solo, 27, who lives in Seattle.

She played soccer for Richland High School from 1996 to 1999 before playing for the University of Washington, where she set the school record of 18 shutouts.

She debuted for the U.S. national team in 2000, was drafted by the Philadelphia Charge in 2003, and later played in Sweden and France. Last month, she was drafted to play for the St. Louis franchise in the new Women’s Professional Soccer league, which is to start play in April.

Solo acknowledged the controversy she found herself in a year ago, when she publicly second-guessed her coach’s decision to bench her in the semi-final game of the World Cup. The U.S. lost 4-0 to Brazil in that game, a year ago today.

“I think we all know sometimes I can lose focus, sometimes I could say things maybe I shouldn’t say — maybe I should say,” she said with a slight laugh. “But I really had true guidance here in this community.”

She said she’s still getting used to being a role model, but that the responsibility means a lot to her.

“And I really, really pray one day I can look back at you guys and cheer you on in the stands as you play for your universities or as you play for Richland High or as you go on to hopefully play for the U.S. team,” she said, looking directly into the faces of the girls and boys in the audience.

Solo will sign autographs again from 10:30 to 11 a.m. today at the Richland City Fair on the city hall campus at George Washington Way and Swift Boulevard. Here is picture gallery

BEIJING — Amid the team bedlam of an Olympic gold medal celebration Thursday night, the star of the game, goalkeeper Hope Solo, peeled away to an empty part of the Workers Stadium pitch. No one was within 50 yards of her.

A solo operation, as is her style.

Moments earlier, the former University of Washington star and Richland native had pulled a cell phone from her stash bag next to the net she defended so magnificently in the U.S.’ 1-0 overtime win over Brazil.

So confident was she of a victory that she brought the phone onto the field so a call could be made immediately to her younger brother, Marcus, back in Washington. As alone as anyone could be in a stadium that held more than 50,000 people, she yelled into the phone.
Cameron Spencer / Getty Images
Goalkeeper Hope Solo celebrates as she speaks on her cell phone after the U.S. women’s soccer team defeated Brazil in the gold medal match to defend their 2004 Olympic title. Former UW star and Richland native Solo stashed the phone in the bag she kept next to the goal and called her younger brother back in Washington as soon as the match ended to tell him about the team’s victory.

“I told him, ‘We just won a damn gold medal!’ ” she said, laughing. “And bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep!”

Then she walked back to the sideline, where the entire team was being interviewed as a group by NBC. She passed them by, smiling, and went into the locker room. A few minutes later, she came out for her TV interview. Alone.

Hope Solo is a different kind of female team athlete. She feels no obligation to apologize for breaking the paradigm of the Mia Hamm/Brandi Chastain-led teams of previous Olympics and World Cups that offered an endearing, highly marketable chick-bonding camaraderie.

Following her for the rest of her days will be an outburst after a World Cup loss 10 months ago to these same Brazilians, also in China. She made national headlines by breaking the code among team sports, particularly with women, when she publicly criticized her coach and teammates.

Labeled a pariah, she was ostracized. Now she’s a hero. The U.S. is women’s soccer champion for the third time in four Olympics. Even she is bewildered.

“It’s like a storybook ending you see in Hollywood or fairy tales, yet it’s really playing out,” she said. “It’s almost too perfect an ending. Nothing ever goes right with my family and my life. This is too perfect. I can’t really swallow it right now.”

It is an astonishing reversal. Her talent, not her headstrong words, was the decisive factor. The soccer federation had fired coach Greg Ryan and replaced him with Pia Sundhage, a Swede who previously coached China’s national team. A transformation was under way.

“I think the team changed for the better,” Solo said. “A lot of truth came out. It’s kind of a new role for female sports — we don’t have to be best friends to collaborate, put our hearts out on the field and win a gold medal.”

Solo joined her teammates for hugs, hand slaps, the medal ceremony and all the interviews. But she seemed apart, too — similar to the male sports culture of the big home run hitter, the star wide receiver, the dominant basketball center. An alpha leader is not gender specific, nor is he or she the warmest.

Solo is one tough woman. And she was the difference.

The Brazilians completely outplayed the Americans. They had possession 58 percent of the match and had 16 shots on goal compared with 11 for the U.S., though it seemed the gap was wider.

Diving, leaping, stretching on a damp, slippery field, Solo was the formidable answer to the Brazilians’ superior speed and quickness.

“Hope Solo is a great player,” said Brazil’s head coach, Jorge Barcellos, “especially on the crossing balls. She has a very strong sense of herself.”
Luca Bruno / AP
Hope Solo snags a high ball amid a crowd of players, including teammates Lori Chalupny, left, and Heather Mitts, during the women’s soccer gold medal match Thursday against Brazil.

Played to a scoreless tie in regulation in a stadium that had no game clock (perhaps because the civilization is 5,000 old, what’s a couple of hours?), the match turned in the 96th minute when Carli Lloyd’s booming left-footed shot from 18 yards out slipped past Brazilian goalie Barbara.

Even the scorer worked out poetically — Lloyd was the teammate who stuck closest to Solo the previous summer when she was shunned by others.

Solo, 27, also spent much of last year grieving the loss of her father, Jeffrey, who died of heart failure at 69, just a week before his daughter was to put on the U.S. uniform for the first time. He was her first soccer coach. She scattered some of his ashes on the field before every World Cup game.

It was Sundhage, the new coach, who helped with the repairs to attitude and soul.

“Pia is a great leader,” Solo said. “She brought in new players and created a new style and system. You have to do that in order to win a medal.

“She let me be myself. No one was looking over my shoulder. I feel like my spirit is free.”

Thrilling as the medal was around her neck, Solo said it was incidental to the transformation.

“The medal has nothing to do with me feeling better,” she said. “The healing had already taken place. The healing had to take place in my heart and mind before I could even get to the medal.”

Sundhage understood that special talents require a different touch. That is never easy in a sports culture, male or female, that traditionally values equality and fraternity (or sorority) above all.

It doesn’t fit the stereotype, but much can be accomplished behind a solo leader.

BEIJING - Hope Solo’s sure hands made up for the butterfingers of U.S. relay runners on a seesaw day for Americans at the Olympics.

Goalkeeper Solo punched a ball that was flying toward the net to save a 1-0 victory over Brazil for the women’s soccer team. With a gold medal hanging around her neck, she salvaged not only her reputation but a brutal slate of performances on Thursday in Beijing.

By fending off a flurry of shots by (Ital)Mah-Velous(Ital) Marta, Solo vindicated herself 10 months after she was ostracized by her teammates for her blunt criticism of their 4-0 loss to Brazil in the 2007 World Cup semifinals.

That was an ugly time for U.S. women’s soccer and women’s sports. Solo spoke her mind about a coaching decision to replace her with Briana Scurry. She was absolutely right, but her teammates took it hard and shunned her as if they were members of a junior high clique. They wouldn’t even eat with her or fly home from China with her.

They regrouped under new coach Pia Sundhage and mended their relationship with Solo.

“A gold medal takes away all the pain in the world,” Solo said. “Honestly, I went through hell. Things change over the course of time. A lot came out. One thing was the role of female sports - you don’t have to be best friends.”

The U.S. track team could have used some teamwork.

At Bird’s Nest Stadium, both U.S. 4×100 relay teams dropped the baton between the third and fourth legs. They were eliminated before the qualifying round was over.

They’ll have to watch as Jamaica goes for world records and a sweep of gold medals in the sprint events.

What a shame, but this isn’t the Junior Olympics. The U.S. should have seamless exchanges by now, especially given its gaffes of the past.

It was an embarrassing case of deja vu for Lauryn Williams, who took off too soon and couldn’t get the baton from Marion Jones at the Athens Olympics. This time, Torri Edwards let the baton go too quickly after slapping it into Williams’ hand.

“Somebody somewhere has a voodoo doll of the U.S.,” Williams said. “I have no idea what could have gone wrong. Our plan was to come out here, have safe passes and lay it all on the track tomorrow.”

Instead, the baton clattered to the ground. Williams dashed back to retrieve it and finished the race out of a sense of duty, four seconds behind seventh-place Italy.

Here’s an opportunity for Elmer’s Glue to become an Olympic sponsor.

In the men’s race, Darvis Patton and Tyson Gay bungled their exchange. Poor Gay, who went from being a contender for three golds to a man who didn’t even run in a final.

“It’s kind of funny all the love I got last year and now I’m going home with no hardware,” Gay said.

Meanwhile, Jamaica cruised as Usain Bolt took the night off except to accept his gold for the 200. Jamaica’s national anthem was followed by a rendition of Happy Birthday. Bolt turned 22 Thursday.

Fans would love to see Bolt perform another world record dance and make Jacques Rogge eat his words. The International Olympic Committee chief reprimanded Bolt for his theatrics. Rogge needs a Tsingtao or three.

Fans - and NBC - love a little jiggle. Just look at the ratings for women’s beach volleyball, which concluded in pouring rain Thursday with a second straight gold medal for Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh, who defeated China to win their 108th consecutive match.

Then the volleyball throwbacks - the ones who play indoors - upset Cuba’s women’s team to advance to the final for the first time since their coach, Jenny Lang Ping, led China to a gold-medal victory over the U.S. in 1984.

Carli Lloyd scored in the sixth minute of extra time as the United States won their second straight Olympic women’s soccer gold medal with a 1-0 victory over Brazil on Thursday.

Since women’s soccer first featured at the Olympics in 1996, the USA have now claimed three gold and one silver medal, while Brazil won their second silver.

But while Lloyd scored the winning goal on Thursday, the hero for the Americans was goalkeeper Hope Solo, an ironic twist after last year’s controversy at the World Cup.
 

After losing to the US in the gold-medal match in the Athens Olympics, Brazil exacted revenge on Team USA at the 2007 World Cup, snapping their 51-match winning streak with a humiliating 4-0 triumph in the semi-finals.

The loss was highly controversial for the US as Solo was benched in favour of veteran Briana Scurry by then-coach Greg Ryan, who was promptly fired following the Americans’ third-place finish.

Solo, who made a number of comments suggesting that she should have started in net and would have made the saves, came up big for the Americans against the favoured Brazilians on Thursday.

Brazil controlled most of the possession but were unable to generate too many chances as the United States focused on keeping things tight early on.

Leading scorers Cristiane and Marta dazzled with the ball down the sidelines but could not get anything going down the middle of the field as the US forced long-distance shots or ambitious crosses from the wings which Solo was able to deal with.

Solo made the best save of the match in the 72nd minute when Marta worked herself free on the left side of the penalty area and fired a hard left-footed shot from close range that the US goalkeeper just got a right hand on before the ball was cleared away.

Angela Hucles had the Americans’ best chance in normal time, blasting a shot from 20 yards away that was stopped by Brazil’s sprawling goalkeeper Barbara in the 86th minute.

After the match went to extra time, Lloyd put the US on top as she received a pass on the left side of the 18-yard box and her left-footed shot beat Barbara and found the back of the net just inside the right post.

Brazil, who had 13 corner kicks in the game, supplied heavy pressure over most of the game’s final 24 minutes but attempted too many individual moves against multiple defenders to generate a clear opportunity.

With time winding down, Marta made a run down the right wing and delivered a dangerous cross into the box, but Solo was there to deflect the ball away from danger with oncoming Brazilian forwards in the area.

In the bronze-medal match, Fatmire Bajramaj scored a pair of goals as two-time defending World Cup champions Germany beat Japan, 2-0.

Bajramaj put Germany on top in the 69th minute, knocking home a rebound from a tough angle on the left side of the six-yard box. She scored again in the 87th minute to give the Germans some insurance.

Japan were denied their first-ever medal in the event, while Germany have now earned the bronze in three consecutive Olympics.