Solo

by Hope Solo

  “Aya,” I said, hugging her, “please celebrate. You just won the World Cup.”

  I was stopped for an interview by ESPN. “As much as I’ve always wanted this,” I said, my voice cracking, “if there was any other team I could give this to it would have to be Japan.”

  It hurt not to win the World Cup. That might have been—for all I know—as close as I would ever get to winning a World Cup. But for the first time in my soccer career, I could see the bigger picture. I had always been so focused on winning, but finally—just shy of my thirtieth birthday—I appreciated the moment, and I could make peace with the loss. Japan was playing for something bigger than just soccer. The outcome felt like fate.

  In a ceremony following the game, I stepped up to receive the Golden Glove, the honor of being named goalkeeper of the tournament. It was the award I had always sought—validation that I was the best goalkeeper in the world—but as I stood there, I realized that I had never expected to win it like this, alone, without a winning team celebrating around me. It was a bittersweet moment.

  Despite our loss, I knew that what had happened was good for women’s soccer. We had built up the game. We had rebuilt our team. I was so proud of everything that we had accomplished together, how far we had come together. We played with fight and we won and lost with class. We could be proud of each other, and our country could be proud of us.

  During the medal ceremony, I stood with my teammates on the second-highest podium and felt the silver medal slip over my neck. I kept it on all night.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Bare-Ass Naked on a Lawn

  I ripped off my wig—it was like having a toy poodle clamped onto my scalp. I pulled off one pair of fake eyelashes and then another. I scrubbed off the thick coating of makeup that had been spackled over my face, then stepped into the shower and watched the spray-painted tan bleed off my skin, a steady stream of dirty water washing down the drain. And I thought, How did someone who loathes all things fake end up here in the land of phony? In Hollywood on Dancing with the Stars, partnered with a dancer who was far from the world’s best teammate?

  One of the phone calls my agent had fielded while he was riding the bus to World Cup games in Germany was from a producer with DWTS, which I loved to watch. Was I interested in being one of the celebrity contestants on the show? “Sure, that sounds fun,” I told Rich with a laugh, knowing full well that my soccer schedule would never allow for such a commitment.

  I didn’t know what lay ahead for me after the World Cup, but I knew one thing: I wasn’t going back to the MagicJack. After pushing my shoulder so hard—ten months of grueling rehab and competition—I needed to take a long break from soccer. My goal for the 2012 Olympics was to be healthy and no longer reliant on the pain medication I had been taking for so many months. I had killed myself, but had achieved my goal: I had played in the World Cup, every minute from the first game through to the penalty-kick ending of the final. I was voted goalkeeper of the tournament. Despite all the doubts, I had prevailed.

  When the team arrived in New York on the Monday after the final, we were greeted by television cameras, media requests, and a huge throng of enthusiastic fans waiting for us in Times Square. We appeared as a team on the Today show, where we were told that our final game broke a world record for “tweets per second,”—surpassing even the royal wedding. We were overwhelmed by our new celebrity status and a bit confused. Only Pearcie—the last of the ’99ers—had ever experienced anything like this. But that team had won the World Cup. We had played well, but we had lost.

  That made the enthusiastic response even more moving: it was all about the game. The outpouring wasn’t a knee-jerk bandwagon response to a winner. Everyone was talking about women’s soccer. Even the idiotic commentary suggesting that we choked away the final wasn’t, I had to concede, necessarily a bad thing. People were talking about a women’s sporting event the way they talked about guys’ sports. That’s progress.

  Abby and I went on the David Letterman show to talk about the game. Letterman didn’t know anything about soccer—and made that quite clear. He asked us to go out on Broadway and kick soccer balls through the open door of a cab. I nailed a shot right into a yellow cab. I was on the cover of that week’s Sports Illustrated. A few days later, in Burbank, I went on the George Lopez show and dunked him in a water tank by kicking a ball to a target that released his platform. “You’re badass,” Lopez said.

  That was generally the response. We were tough, we were gritty, we were badass, and we’d made our country proud.

  While I was in Southern California, there were more conversations with the Dancing with the Stars producers, and I studied my schedule. The national team had only two games scheduled in a celebration tour. There might be one more friendly scheduled in the fall. But our run-up to Olympic qualifying wasn’t going to get serious for a couple of months. I gulped. Turns out I could do Dancing with the Stars. A grubby kid from Richland all dressed up in sparkles in Hollywood, like Cinderella at the ball. “It’ll be a great showcase for women’s soccer,” everyone said.

  That was true. NFL players and other Olympic athletes had received huge crossover exposure on the show. Why not a female soccer player? Why not me? Besides, I’d always wanted to learn to dance.

  II.

  Little girls were pushing up against the railing for autographs. A few months earlier, the MagicJack had played in front of a handful of people scattered across vast expanses of empty bleachers. Now we had a packed house and a frenzied crowd. Kids leapt over barricades and rushed onto the field as soon as the game ended, and players from both teams were sequestered in the locker room for more than an hour because the crush was so intense that we couldn’t leave. Abby—who was now the MagicJack player-coach—couldn’t address the media after the game because she couldn’t get to them. I was there just to make an appearance—speak at halftime and sign some autographs. I was mobbed and at one point had five security escorts trying to get me out of the stadium and into a van with tinted windows. It was pandemonium.

  But the enthusiasm couldn’t sustain the beleaguered league. While we had been busy with the World Cup, a war was brewing between our owner, Dan Borislow, and league officials. The league told Dan it was considering terminating his ownership rights. Dan countered by filing a lawsuit to prevent that. It was a mess. Meanwhile, the league was asking some players to play for just a couple of hundred bucks a game, without health insurance. After the positive experience of the World Cup, the WPS felt like a black hole of negative energy.

  I wasn’t playing soccer, but I wasn’t exactly resting. Gatorade signed me to a contract, I agreed to be involved in the Chicago Marathon and I drove the pace car at the Brickyard 400. I moved some of my belongings into a condo near the Grove in West Hollywood, which would be my base for Dancing with the Stars. But that August, I really felt that my home was seat 5A on a 727 crossing the country.

  My partner in my travels was Whitney Unruh, Rich’s assistant. She was a godsend, not only keeping my schedule and appearances organized, but also becoming a close friend. On my thirtieth birthday, I celebrated in Indianapolis—the Brickyard 400 was the next day—with Whitney and Adrian. We toasted the future: thirty is a significant milestone for anyone, but especially for a professional athlete. I was pretty confident—with my repaired shoulder and wisdom gained over the years—that I had several more years left.

  There was one weekend that I kept free of commitments. Cheryl and her longtime boyfriend, Galen, were getting married on the water in Port Ludlow, Washington. I was so happy for Cheryl, but I was also wounded. She hadn’t asked me to be her maid of honor, a decision that hurt me. I understood, of course, that Megan was the right choice. I had been committed to the World Cup for the last several months; there was no way I would have been able to organize everything or fulfill all those duties that a maid of honor has. But it stung. We had been like sisters for twenty-two years.
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  The day before the wedding, Cheryl and I finally spoke about the pain we’d caused each other. I told her how hurt I was to not have a special place in her wedding; she said she and our other college friends had been hurt by my inability to stay in regular touch and participate in their big moments. They didn’t seem to understand my life and the commitments I had. I couldn’t just walk away from a national-team camp in order to make a social engagement. It was a hard conversation but long overdue. When I get married, I don’t think I’ll even have a maid of honor; I’ll include all my friends equally—Cheryl, Tina, Malia, Terry, Debbie, Sofia, Whitney. That might not be conventional, but I’ve never been very interested in “conventional” anything.

  Not that anyone should need further proof of that, but one day in the weeks after the World Cup, I was standing bare-ass naked on a lawn on the Warner Bros. studio lot in Burbank. ESPN magazine was shooting its Body issue, and I was going to be on the cover. I was excited—I loved powerful images of the human body. In 1999 Brandi Chastain was criticized for her nude photo—crouched over a soccer ball—on the cover of Gear magazine, but I loved that shot—it showed strength and beauty.

  But admiring such a photo and preparing for one are two different things. “Do you want to start out wearing underwear?” the director asked. “To ease into it?”

  “What’s the point? Won’t that just prolong it?”

  I’ve never been a prude, but I was extremely nervous. I figured it was best to just get it over with, so I dropped my robe, stepped out of the tent, and was quickly surrounded by about eight strangers—makeup artists, photographers, and their assistants. We were out there for almost six hours, shooting on the same neighborhood set where Bewitched was filmed. It’s funny how quickly I got used to it—just another job. Soon, I was sprinting down the empty street—I’d always wanted to run naked outside. It felt liberating.

  Because I was going to be on the cover in an athletic action pose, they needed some different shots of me for the inside pages. At one point, the photographer handed me a garden hose and asked me to hold it in front of me and spray. The imagery was obvious and distasteful. After a minute—during which Whitney and a few other people, including an ESPN representative, expressed their displeasure with the shot—I dropped the hose. “Let’s do something else,” I said.

  When I was in the trailer after the shoot, the photographer came in and showed us his work. I loved all of the images except one. “I don’t like that,” I said of the hose shot. “You won’t use that, will you?”

  We were verbally assured that the hose shot wouldn’t run in the magazine, that at worst it would be online with an album of other photos. I was putting myself out there with ESPN, pushing outside my comfort zone. Standing naked in front of photographers was difficult and scary. But it was relatively easy compared to what I was facing next—dancing in front of millions of people.

  III.

  I sat in a car next to a soccer field in Westchester, not far from the Los Angeles Airport. The cameras were all set to capture the moment I met my DWTS partner, the pro I would rely on. I suspected that my partner was going to be Maksim Chmerkovskiy—the handsome “bad boy” of the show, who liked to keep his shirt unbuttoned. He also was the only pro dancer tall enough to pair with me.

  A red Rolls-Royce pulled up to the soccer field and Maks got out. I started laughing—what a Hollywood entrance. As my producers requested, I got out of my car and began warming up in goal, and they shot Maks walking across the field to meet me. It was so staged and awkward. I tried to keep it real and cut the ice—I started giving Maks a hard time. “Wow, those are some tight jeans you’re wearing,” I said. And, “Are dancers even real athletes?”

  I could tell Maks was a little surprised. He’s used to women fawning all over him, but I figured I should put us on even ground while I could. The producers were encouraging me to stand up to him. I figured Maks knew what was going on.

  When he assured me that he was very athletic, I said, “Come on Maks—let’s see how good you are at my profession. Block some of my shots.”

  I started shooting balls at him and he shuffled back and forth in front of the goal as best he could in his tight jeans, while I drilled balls past him.

  Later that day, we had our first rehearsal. I found Maks personable and refreshingly honest about the show—dishing dirt on everyone and filling me in on what to expect. I knew he was considered moody and high-maintenance, but he was going to be my coach and teammate for the next several weeks—however long we lasted in this crazy competition—so we were going to have to get along.

  IV.

  I was sitting in the makeup room with the other “stars.” The cast was going to be revealed on Bachelor Pad. It was the first time I had met most of them: Rob Kardashian, David Arquette, Kristin Cavallari. Everyone was feeling each other out; everyone seemed nervous.

  When the makeup crew was finally done with me, I almost cried when I saw what was looking back at me in the mirror. I looked freakish. My long hair was huge, poofed up and hair-sprayed. “Oh my God,” I said.

  “Get used to it, honey,” laughed one makeup artist. “This is just a fraction of what you’ll go through when the show starts.”

  Maks and I went to work, with long hard rehearsals. I’m an athlete, I’m competitive, and I’m confident that I can excel at any physical activity, but dancing was harder than I expected. It felt unnatural—my body refused to contort into unfamiliar positions, my neck was always sore. I rarely wear high heels, but now I was being asked to dance—backwards—in them. My feet were covered with blisters after the first couple of rehearsals.

  The first show was September 19. On September 17, I started for the national team in a “celebration tour” game in Kansas City. Maks came with me—we had to find a dance studio near the hotel so we could practice. Though the scheduling was insane, it was great to be back on the field with my teammates. The normal routine helped ease my nerves and distracted me from what was looming in just a matter of hours.

  The night of the first DWTS show, I was so scared I thought I might be sick. My support crew was there: Adrian, Terry, and Tina had all flown in. Rich and Whitney drove over from their L.A. office. When I walked into the trailer that served as my home on the lot, after hair and makeup, they were shocked. “Hope, you’ve never looked so girly!” Tina said.

  I was wearing a sparkling pink dress with flowing sleeves, long dangling earrings and a necklace that could have doubled as Liberace’s candelabra. I downed a glass of white wine to calm my nerves. “You’re beautiful, babe. You’re going to be incredible,” Adrian whispered in my ear as I left the trailer.

  Maks and I waltzed to Dave Matthews’s “Satellite.” The good news: I didn’t fall down; I didn’t make any major mistakes. When the song ended, I was exhilarated. I looked over at my section—my support group was giving me a standing ovation. And then the judges spoke. Though they were complimentary, each one mentioned my “strength” or my “muscles.” I was told I needed to be more feminine, as though having muscles and being strong wasn’t feminine. I smiled. I was relieved it was over, but I wasn’t sure what they wanted from me.

  The morning after the first results show—where I learned I would be back for another week—Maks and I flew to Portland. I had another soccer game to play. Two days later, I started in goal against Canada in a game that was a celebration of my hundredth cap, which had come in the semifinals against France. My family and friends were in the stands—my grandma was there in her Solo jersey. This was the kind of stage I understood. The next day we flew back to L.A., where Maks and I continued rehearsing the jive.

  That second week, we had to dance first: our soccer-themed dance was a hit with the audience, but the judges scolded me for not putting in enough rehearsal time, even though I had spent many hours in rehearsal. The most difficult thing for me was memorizing the choreography; in each step my arms and body and posture
were different. But the judges didn’t know how hard I’d been busting my ass, keeping up with my team on the road while the others rehearsed.

  V.

  We settled into a routine. Sundays were long days with camera blocking and rehearsal. By the time I dragged myself back to my apartment, Adrian was there waiting for me. On Mondays I had a 7 a.m. “call time” and was in dress rehearsal all day. In the afternoon my core support group would arrive. When I had a break we ate cheese and crackers and drank wine to relax. Then my other guests arrived. While everyone found their seats, Adrian and Whitney stayed behind. Whitney helped me with my costume. Adrian had strong words of encouragement. It was like preparing for competition.

  It was starting to get strange to be in restaurants or other public places. The paparazzi started following me. People stood up and clapped when I walked into restaurants. Drinks were sent to the table. I appreciated the support, but it was unnerving.

  There were many rules and traditions that we had to follow. The celebrities gave each other gifts: lotion, perfume, accessories. I wanted to get everyone in the cast a pair of cool Nikes, so I took everyone’s shoe size and went to Niketown in Beverly Hills to buy the shoes. When they were passed out—to both pro dancers and celebrities—one of the dancers told me that I was the first person to include the dancers in a cast gift. That seemed weird—weren’t we all working together?

  The best part was all the support I got from my friends and family. Terry was so loving and involved—my sister, who used to love to dress me up and do my hair, was there for the ultimate game of dress-up. One week we danced the foxtrot to “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” from Toy Story, with Maks and I dressed up as Woody and Jessie. That week Grandma Alice and Marcus came and brought Johnny, who was wearing his Buzz Lightyear Halloween costume. My mom and Aunt Susie came the week I danced the rumba to “Seasons of Love,” from Rent. They didn’t go Hollywood with designer clothes—they wore their SOLO NO. 1 jerseys.