By Richard Kaufman
Sentinel Reporter
It’s not every day you get to play soccer with a U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team player, World Cup champion and Olympic gold medalist.
Nearly 200 kids had the chance to do just that last weekend, as Megan Rapinoe held a soccer and training clinic in conjunction with Cardinal Soccer Camps at Sacred Heart Greenwich.
Rapinoe, 33, is a co-captain of the U.S. women’s national team with Carli Lloyd and Alex Morgan, and currently plays for the Seattle Reign in the National Women’s Soccer League. Rapinoe was a part of the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup Championship team, and won gold at the 2012 Olympics in London.
Rapinoe, a native of Redding, Calif., is co-founder of Rapinoe SC, a soccer and performance training and apparel business. For the last three years, along with her twin sister Rachael and various All-Star women’s players, high performance trainers and area coaches, Rapinoe has traveled along the west coast offering clinics for young soccer players. She’s just now venturing up and down the east coast.
The soccer fields at Sacred Heart Greenwich were jam packed and bustling last weekend. For three hours, players from age 7-18 participated in shooting, passing and defensive drills. They also worked on strength, speed and agility.
“We try to give them as much as we can in three hours. We try to give them a sort of holistic approach, too,” Rapinoe said.
Players from all over attended the clinic. Leah Sporacio, 15, from Farmingdale, N.Y., on Long Island, couldn’t pass up an opportunity to learn from such a decorated professional soccer player.
“It was really fun. I learned a lot of new things, and I met a lot of new people. All the advice I got from the coaches to help me throughout my career was very helpful,” Sporacio said, adding that it was “really cool” to meet Rapinoe.
Eight-year-old, Katherine Higgs, who goes to Greenwich Catholic School, said she was looking forward to the clinic and learning new skills.
“I was excited,” she said afterwards. “I learned to keep your defender off you with your arm.”
But Rapinoe hopes the kids will take home more than just some new moves to pull-off on the pitch.
“The soccer is really just a vehicle for us… We want to empower kids. Especially for girls, we want to give them something to dream towards and to let them know that no dream is big enough,” Rapinoe said. “We also want to let them have fun. I think so much about [youth] sports these days is it’s so competitive and so serious.”
“Be Your Best You” is the motto Rapinoe hopes to instill during her clinics.
“Don’t compare yourself to anyone,” she said. “Do your best that you can do, and I feel like if you do that in life in whatever you do, there’s a lot of fulfillment to have with that.”
One of the stations during the clinic included a Q&A session with Rapinoe.
“A lot of them ask me what inspired me to be a pro player. I wasn’t thinking that at their age. The national team wasn’t as popular and soccer wasn’t on T.V. all the time. To be able to kind of see where the sport has gone and give back, and let the kids know they have so much opportunity and access to even dream about it, is cool,” Rapinoe said. “To be able to come out and have fun and give them a cool experience and share my story has been special.”
Rapinoe believes that with all of the issues American football has been having, people are looking for something different, and soccer is filling that void. She said soccer has grown exponentially over the last 10 years.
“To be a part of that, especially in the women’s game to see how it’s grown, and to be a part of that growth and push forward is really cool,” Rapinoe said.
At the end of Rapinoe’s clinics, everyone gathers to take a group photo. It’s always one of her favorite parts of the day.
“The picture is always hilarious,” Rapinoe said. “They’re so excited. To wrap it up, the smiles are huge, and to kind of be able to see how much fun they had throughout the day and capture that moment is always really fun for us.”
