SoccerGrlProbs - SoccerGrlProbs Presents: The Ladyballers Guide to Life

To all the soccer girls reading this: trust us when we say that even though soccer may be the most frustrating thing in your life at times, the good moments will always, always outweigh the bad. You will build lifelong relationships with your teammates, grow in self-confidence and inner pride, and create memories that will make up tenfold for that time you got benched for making a simple mistake or that party you missed because you were traveling for a game. You only get one soccer career. Make the most of it, and enjoy every second of it!

To our families, for shaping us into the strong, confident, and proud women we are today.

Contents

Foreword by Brandi Chastain

How is just being ourselves so challenging? I mean, how is it there are so many things that can interrupt the process of us feeling good and finding our true north? The challenges are many, and this is why The Ladyballers Guide to Life is a fantastic resource to navigate the obstacles that people, time, school, recruiting, sports, and extracurriculars may throw our way.

When I look back at my younger self, I could have used some guidance from women who knew what it was like. Now, there are plenty of resources that young women can use to help them, but this book is unique. Its told in real language, with real examples of challenges that will help you see things more clearly.

One, know you are not alone . This would have been helpful for me to know, as I had two ACL reconstructionsyes, twoin the first three years of my college career. I had no idea what to expect nor how to navigate the journey ahead.

Two, I was a transfer student, so assimilating into a new environment, culture, and friend groups proved challenging.

Three, I was a competitive beast who just wanted to play, and sometimes that rubbed people the wrong way. I could have used words of wisdom to help articulate my feelings, needs, or ideas, but instead they stayed bottled up.

My Ladyballers Carly, Alanna, and Shannon have created a vehicle for positive change and assistance as you meander, jog, trot, sprint, or explode down your lifes path. Use the wisdom shared as your history to your new future. Be well . Stay resolute. And always look to be inspired .

Brandi Chastain, your No. 6

Brandi Chastain is a two-time FIFA Womens World Cup champion, two-time Olympic gold medalist, coach, and sports broadcaster. She played for the United States national team from 1988 to 2004 and was inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame in March 2017.

1. Welcome to the Club, Ladyballer

Welcome to The Ladyballers Guide to Life , written to help you through the roller-coaster ride that is being a collegiate soccer player. Meet your new best friends: Carly Beyar, Shannon Fay, and Alanna Locast, three former NCAA Division I student-athletes and the creators of @SoccerGrlProbs. Were here to help you master the Dos & Donts of playing college soccer, balancing your sport, academic, and social life, as well as creating a healthy body and mindset, staying motivated, and being the best you that you can be. There is an art to remaining sane while playing the beautiful game. Take it from players who have been through it all.

The purpose of this book is for the three of us to share with you our Ladyballer Nuggets of Wisdom in the hopes that you can use this guide to become the most epic Ladyballer you can be. But wait; we should probably explain what a Ladyballer is first:

This is a term youll hear us use when speaking highly of another female athlete. Lets be honest; we all strive to be a Ladyballer. She is chill and fun to be around. Her favorite movie is Shes the Man and her favorite parties involve pasta. Her hair is perpetually knotted in a ponytail and/or giant pineapple bun on top of her head, and you can bet your bottom dollar that an abundance of hair ties adorns her wrist. A thigh gap is most definitely the last thing on her mind as she surrendered to the struggle of skinny jeans years ago. She loves her toned muscles and is comfortable in her own skinwith or without makeup. Not only does she value commitment, time management, communication skills, and leadership, shes also a team player with an insatiable thirst for progress, on and off the field. Shes a boss, in all facets of life. Oh, and she follows @SoccerGrlProbs religiously, watches all their videos, and tells all her friends about them.

Our story began at Fairfield University, where the three of us met in preseason as Division I athletes on the womens soccer team. Between our second and third training sessions of the day (also known as three-a-days ) during the preseason of August 2011, we found ourselves venting about all the absurd moments and frustrating problems we were experiencing. We kept laughing at how funny we thought we were (because thats what you do with your team...hysterically laugh about the nonsense that no one else would even understand), and with that came the spontaneous birth of our Twitter handle, @SoccerGrlProbs. We now had a comedic outlet to all share our inner thoughts and the funny moments that make up a female athletes everyday life.

Its no secret how crazily intertwined the soccer community is. Our teammates told their high school teammates, club teammates, friends, and coaches about the Twitter handle, and within weeks our following had grown to hundreds. We couldnt believe how fast it had taken off. We vowed that when we hit 1,000 followers we would streak down the library hilluntil the moment we hit 1,000 followers. We quickly changed the streaking number to 20,000. When we hit 20,000, it became 100,000. Then once we hit 100,000, it became 200,000. And ever since then, weve been avoiding that library hill like the plague.

PHOTO CREDIT: Daphne Youree

Little did we know that we had struck a chord with young women just like us across the country, who wanted more content they could relate to. So we said, Why not? We frolicked around campus, giggling at ourselves, armed with an iPad and a soccer ball, capturing the ridiculous moments that filled our everyday lives. This was no fancy film crew; we were essentially just friends and teammates, reenacting the daily shenanigans female soccer players stumble through: struggling to get up the stairs after a tough conditioning practice, sporting bruises and turf burns all over our legs during summer, eating an extra slice of pizza without a worry because we know well run it off later. Picture us, three athletes with an iPad reenacting or saying something weird and being overheard by someone on campus. We specifically remember one time we were filming in the cafeteria at school and the employees were giving us weird looks, no doubt thinking to themselves, What the heck are you doing? We would always get the scene done as fast as possible and then laugh hysterically as we sprinted to the next filming location.

In February 2012, we created and posted our first video, Sh*t Soccer Girls Say. We noticed about an hour after we put the video out that there were only 306 views. How could that be? It was stuck on that number for hours! We thought we uploaded the video wrong (because chances werewe did). The next morning, we woke up and refreshed the YouTube page. The number didnt say 306 anymore. It now said more than 1 million views! Cue the jaw drop; we were flabbergasted. We had everyone and their mother (we mean this literally) calling us to tell us that they saw us in that new soccer video! What had originally been created as a venting outlet for our team had grown into so much more. Our fans asked us for T-shirts with funny lines from our YouTube videos and tweets, so we made a cheap, simplistic website. Were still not sure how people trusted it enough to input their credit card information; it looked very sketchy! We created three T-shirts, each with a funny line, put them up on the website, and we sold out! All 300 T-shirts were gone in few hours. In fact, we forgot to set an inventory limit, because we didnt think wed sell more than 10 T-shirts. Were laughing now, but that was probably not a good idea because we didnt even physically have the shirts yet. Oops! Lo and behold, the number of orders kept crawling in. What had we gotten ourselves into? Or even better, how did we get this lucky!?