One Life

by Megan Rapinoe

  It was a scene that would repeat in the following days. When we got to Atlanta for the game against the Netherlands, Jill asked to see me before the game. As a precaution, I asked my team captains, Becky and Carli, to come with me; I had a hunch that whatever was coming wouldn’t be good.

  Owing to my performance in the game against Thailand, said Jill, I wouldn’t be in the starting lineup for the game that night in Atlanta. “That’s bullshit,” I said. “We just won 9–0.” Two days earlier, Jill had told me I would be starting the game, and now all of a sudden I’m not? She dissembled; it wasn’t for the reason I might think she was doing it, she told me, and when I pushed back, she changed tack. It had been very difficult; she was getting a lot of judgment about my protest, and given the scale of the fallout, she was worried about safety. (You live in a gated community, I thought, perhaps unkindly. You’re fine.) Maybe I should have had more time for her concerns, but she seemed to be missing the whole point of the protest. Later that day, I apologized again. That night at the game, I was brought on in the second half as a sub.

  Everything changed after that game in Atlanta. If Jill had been of two minds about playing me, the experience of seeing the crowd turn against me seemed to help her make up her mind. When I ran out onto the field in the second half, the booing from the bleachers was unmistakable. Being hate-watched piled on the pressure in a way that instinctively raised my competitive game. If you want me to lose, I’m going to win even harder; it really doesn’t bother me. But my coach, I suspect, was shocked. She seemed totally blindsided. We beat the Netherlands 3–1 that night, and for the next two games—against Switzerland and Romania—I was told to not dress. (When you don’t dress for a game, you turn up but you’re in the stands; you might as well be a spectator.) The reason Jill gave was that I wasn’t back to full fitness. A few weeks later, I attended winter training camp but didn’t dress for the games. In December, when I broke for the holidays, I hadn’t played with the national team for more than three months.

  Ever since the November election, when Rach and I discovered our dad had voted for Trump, we had been giving him the silent treatment. (We suspended it to send him happy birthday texts on November 14, but neither of us signed off with kisses or emojis.) It was rough, the longest we’d ever gone—six weeks—without speaking to him, and we’d done it from a place of deep hurt. Heading home for the holidays, we knew it was going to be tense. On Christmas Eve, over my mom’s famous annual spaghetti buffet, we let him have it.

  “How could you?!” we yelled. “How could you vote for that heathen when you have gay daughters?!”

  My dad started to object. “I love you guys—” he said.

  “OK, well, Pence doesn’t!” we snapped back.

  What about Trump’s racism? we said. What about his sexism and homophobia? What about the way he bragged about sexual assault?None of it landed. My dad didn’t love Trump; he hadn’t signed on to the personality cult. But he was definitely part of Trump’s base of disgruntled white voters who had been persuaded they were a vulnerable minority. What about this? he’d counter. What about that? The social security system was too expensive; Obamacare didn’t work; he was upset over something to do with trade deals, all opinions that came from Fox News. “I don’t trust the other news networks,” he said.

  I don’t give my dad a free pass for any of this. But I do think it’s useful to understand where he comes from. He’s from a conservative white town that’s been hit hard not only by recession, but also by businesses taking their operations overseas, and his views were echoed by a lot of people he knew. Nothing we said—pointing out how well he’d done under Obama’s initiatives to make houses more energy efficient, or how Obamacare provided better access to health care than he’d had before—would convince him otherwise. “Trump doesn’t fucking care about you!” we yelled. “You’re so worried about Democrats and socialism. You could use some fucking socialism!”

  It got pretty intense. My mom doesn’t like fighting and tried to calm us down, but we were half mad with her, too. She hadn’t voted for Trump, but she hadn’t voted for Hillary, either. We know what those third-party votes meant, so she had basically voted for Trump. At least she hated Fox News. After years of having it on all day, every day, my mom could see the effect it had on my dad, who had become much more curmudgeonly and defeatist.

  It was a rough Christmas, as it was for many families after such a divisive election. I love my dad and admire so many wonderful things about him—his kindness, his decency, his generosity, his work ethic. But when it comes to Trump, I can’t bite my tongue.

  There were other stresses that holiday season. On top of the Trump stuff, my mom was worried about my safety in the wake of kneeling. “What if someone lashes out?” she said, which I found hard to take seriously. There had been threats, including death threats, but they seemed like hot air.

  “I’m a white soccer person,” I said. “I’m fine. No one’s coming for me.” To be sure, this was an expression of privilege, but what else could I say? “I’m not going to live my life in fear.”

  There was something else my mom was worried about. For the last few months, she had been watching the national team lineups with concern. “You’re not getting any playing time,” she said. “Are you being punished for kneeling?”

  I scoffed. “No, Mom,” I said. “Seriously, it’s not that at all. It’s just Jill being indecisive.” Privately, however, I was starting to wonder.

  * * *

  —

  In January 2017, I attended a national squad training camp and did well, although not amazingly. I hadn’t played a lot and needed more practice. In February, right before the annual SheBelieves Cup, Jill called. She wasn’t, she said, inviting me to the pretournament training camp, which ruled me out of playing in the competition. I was flabbergasted. “You’re not even going to let me come practice?” I said. Her decision made no sense whatsoever.

  I tried to argue my case. If the reasoning was that I still wasn’t 100 percent fit, the only remedy was to keep playing. I asked if I could at least come to the beginning of camp, and she told me she’d think about it. The next day she called. No, she said; in her opinion, it’d be better if I stayed and trained with my league team in Seattle. Her words hung in the air for a second while I tried to get a hold on my anger.

  “Jill,” I said slowly. “There’s literally no team for me to play with right now. Preseason hasn’t started yet.” I didn’t say: You motherfucker, you are trying to ice me out and I know it. We finished the conversation and I hung up, shocked and fuming. All those missed games at the end of 2016 suddenly took on new meaning. I had no idea what to do.

  The irony was that in early March, US Soccer formally ordered players on the national team to stand during the anthem, something I agreed to go along with. This was a hard decision for me. In terms of my place on the team, it felt very much like a make-or-break moment, and I still feel conflicted about the decision I made. If I hadn’t gone along with the federation’s rule, my soccer career would have likely ended, and along with losing my job, I would have lost my platform. My celebrity, such as it was, wouldn’t outlast my being fired.

  But let’s be honest: I also wanted to keep playing. I wanted to have that financial security, and I wanted to keep speaking out about racism and police brutality, particularly in light of what was happening to Colin. After leaving the 49ers in March, Colin had become a pariah and remained unsigned, despite being one of the best players in the NFL—the 49ers’ “most valuable player of the decade,” according to Pro Football Focus. It was imperative to keep a spotlight not only on the issues raised by his kneeling, but also on what was happening to Colin in the aftermath.

  * * *

  —

  I was disoriented by US Soccer’s actions that winter. But while my agents worried this might be the end of my career, I didn’t think I was likely to be fired. If I hit the NWSL season run
ning, it would be impossible for the national team to fire me without exposing the federation to potential legal action. And I was right. They didn’t fire me. Instead, Jill and US Soccer seemingly made the decision to put me out to pasture. Judging character really wasn’t their strong suit.

  Jill never said a word about freezing me out. No conversation was had. Later in 2017, after opening up the NWSL season on fire, I slipped back into training as if nothing had happened, and I can’t tell you how crazy that made me. It was so dysfunctional, so dishonest, such utter, evasive bullshit, that my interactions with Jill became strained. I had a big chip on my shoulder. I knew what she’d done, and she knew I knew what she’d done, and while in conversation with her I might have been superficially cordial, my vibe said something else: essentially, fuck you.

  I don’t wallow, and I’m not paralyzed by defeat. But I can’t pretend I wasn’t shaken by everything that had happened, and by the extent to which I’d misjudged things. I don’t mean I hadn’t been expecting fallout, although I was taken aback by Jill’s actions. I mean that I hadn’t thought I was being particularly controversial by joining in the call to draw attention to a series of very obvious injustices. Privately, many of my teammates and fellow athletes agreed with the protest. Police brutality was wrong. Racism was a big problem in the US. A reckoning was overdue.

  Their support behind the scenes was great in some ways. It also, let’s not kid ourselves, sucked. When I first knelt on September 4, 2016, I thought other athletes would join. I let myself imagine the impact it might have if all the NFL players got on board, or the biggest stars of basketball, or some of the male stars in the soccer world, where racism had been a problem for decades. OK, they might not have wanted to kneel for the anthem—but I thought they might step forward to say, We’re totally down with everything you’re saying, let’s figure out a way to protest together.

  Some athletes did, including Eric Reid, Colin’s 49ers teammate, and later on, various players for the Miami Dolphins, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Tennessee Titans, and the New England Patriots. Not a single white player joined them, however, and in 2017, while Colin languished without a team and I headed toward further dire repercussions with Jill, the biggest stars of the sports world remained silent. It was so disappointing.

  15

  SUE

  While my career was at its lowest point, my personal life was flourishing. A week after kneeling in Chicago, I had returned home and broken up with Sera. (Inevitably, within a week, a whole bunch of people had reported back to Sera that they’d seen me out in Seattle with Sue.) Every relationship I’d ever been in had been hampered by travel and the fact that I was never at home. Now, with US Soccer freezing me out, I was home for much longer periods of time. For the first few months of our relationship, Sue and I got to spend a ton of quality time together. It was—almost—romantic.

  At the same time, of course, it was deeply bizarre. Starting a new relationship while at the center of a huge media firestorm is the kind of make-or-break situation you don’t really plan for. On the upside, we each got a complete crash course in the other’s unvarnished self, the seriousness of what was happening plunging us into real intimacy. On the downside, I was stressed, angry, and generally bent out of shape, and I didn’t make it easy for Sue.

  She was amazing. Every time I flipped out and picked up my cell, either to fire off an ill-advised tweet or make an ill-advised phone call, she pulled me back. “Take a minute,” she’d say, “and see if it still seems like a good idea.” When I wanted to freak out at Jill, she’d say calmly, “Don’t be an asshole. You have to play the game. She’s the coach. You don’t have to like her and you don’t have to like the environment, but don’t fuck yourself or your team over just to win an argument.” If it hadn’t been for Sue, I would probably have dug myself into a much deeper hole.

  One of the best parts about being with Sue during those weeks—besides falling madly in love—was that I got to piggyback on her schedule. I’d always been haphazard about training and diet, never sticking to a regular routine. To date, I’d been able to get away with it, but now with my back against the wall, it was time to step up my game. A few years earlier, Sue had completely revamped her training to improve her performance, and when we met, she was physically on fire. You don’t get to be one of the best point guards in WNBA history, with two national championships and four Olympic gold medals under your belt, without amazing discipline and training. I needed to do the same thing.

  When Sue trained, I trained; what she ate—more vegetables, less sugar and carbs—I ate. I hadn’t been eating enough, which had impacted my ability to train and kept me hovering at 70 percent effort and engagement. Sue’s fitness and nutrition schedules not only gave me a sense of strength and stability that helped me power up to 100 percent; they also made Sue and I feel as if we were in this together. At the beginning of the 2017 season, after six months on the new regimen, I was so fit and healthy my entire physique had changed. One look at me and it was blatantly obvious: I was stronger and leaner than before.

  I was mentally fit, too. By helping me with my diet and training, Sue wasn’t just giving me practical support. It was emotional, too, and during those weeks and months, I felt as if she were wrapping me up and taking care of me, nursing me back to health both physically and mentally. Sue doesn’t gush, or fuss, or make a big deal out of things, but the fact that she dived headfirst into this absolute dumpster fire of my life was an expression of such love, and tenderness, and strength all in one, that for the first time in my life, I allowed myself truly to melt into someone.

  And we had fun. Sue is super witty and occasionally I’m funny, too—but wow, she made me work for the laughs. Sue’s a tough crowd, allergic to fake laughter (which I’ll settle for), so when I made a joke, 90 percent of the time she’d find it funny enough. One in ten times, however, she’d really—really—laugh at my joke, and to bank one of those was the best feeling in the world.

  During those early months together, Sue was out to her friends, teammates, and family, but she wasn’t publicly out. “Hey,” said my sister sarcastically a few weeks after Sue and I started dating. “When is Sue coming out? ’Cause, you know; you’re the outtest person in the world and . . . kind of visible right now.” Sue is more private than I am, and had never felt the need to make a public announcement. But when it was clear we were firmly together, she scheduled an interview with ESPN.

  For the first time, I felt something I wasn’t accustomed to feeling: vulnerable. I had been in love before, but at thirty-one, I’d never really had my heart broken. My relationship with Sue felt different. On the one hand, it had the ease and inevitability of something that feels truly right. On the other, while I was fully confident of my relationship, falling that hard for someone was new to me. I was more myself with Sue than with anyone I’d ever been with, but I also needed to be my best self—so as not to lose her. I tell her this to this day: If she ever breaks up with me, I’ll crumble to dust.

  * * *

  —

  In the spring of 2017, the women’s national team and US Soccer negotiated a new collective-bargaining agreement. Our complaint to the EEOC was still working its way through the system, and we were frustrated. Over long meetings in the boardroom, our player reps asked the federation for a new profit-sharing model to reflect the huge gains in revenue generated by the success of the women’s team. (They said no.) We negotiated our bonuses up by a few thousand dollars per game, but they were still lower than the men’s rates. (We’d asked for the same deal as the men, but the federation rejected it.) For Becky Sauerbrunn, Christen Press, and Meghan Klingenberg, trying to make a deal with the federation while meeting training camp commitments was difficult, and we all got the feeling US Soccer was using our dedication to the sport against us. When we settled on a less-than-perfect deal, it was partly as a matter of expediency; it was clear US Soccer wasn’t willing to give us more, and the team wasn
’t in a place—politically or emotionally—where we were ready to strike. We hadn’t come close to achieving equal pay, but we had to get back to the game.

  Or at least some of us did. While I was still in the deep freeze, working out with Sue in Seattle, the national team was playing its spring schedule. It had a bumpy start. In March, the team lost two friendlies back-to-back, to England and France. In April, we beat Russia twice in a pair of friendlies, during which I was permitted to make a very brief appearance toward the end of each game. I hadn’t played a full match for the national team since September 2016, and in June, in a game against Sweden, I came on, once again, in the last minutes, before being benched for the next game against Norway. Meanwhile, I was at training camps but wasn’t getting any playing time. I wasn’t out of the woods yet.

  For the first four months of 2017, I trained like a maniac, and when I came back I was in the best shape I’d ever been. I had never worked so hard or been so galvanized, and when the league season started again, I crushed it. Laura, my coach at Seattle Reign, had backed me to the hilt over kneeling. Now she encouraged me to get back in the game, and I was one of the top goal scorers that season. Even Jill couldn’t ignore it.

  In July, we were due to play in the inaugural Tournament of Nations, a newly established set of friendlies scheduled to take place over the course of a week across the US. After three months of dominating my league games, Jill pretty much had to put me in a starting lineup. The game was in Seattle, and after so many months out of action, I shot out onto the field like a cannon. It can take a while to get into your stride, however, and after a choppy few weeks the whole team was off balance. Australia was ranked seventh to our first, but we ended up losing 1–0, a terrible result by our standards.