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Today’s newsletter is like a Mad Libs of celebrity and sporting perfection. In today’s Full Time:
🎙️ Pop superstar watching Spurs
🏀 NBA champ investing in Chelsea
⚽ The darker side of the game
But first, let’s start with the soccer player going for gold in cross-country skiing …
Defying Expectations
Stanford soccer player chasing gold
Olympic skier Sammy Smith’s major is listed as undecided on the Stanford women’s soccer page, but her approach to life is more about a refusal to settle than indecisiveness.
Later this week, the 20-year-old will compete as part of the U.S. cross-country ski team at the Winter Olympics. Two months ago, the sophomore was playing alongside her Cardinal teammates for an NCAA championship.
Smith’s path to Italy zig-zagged Europe on the World Cup circuit and paused mid-ski season to make time for NCAA soccer at one of the top programs in the country. In fact, the summer after her freshman year, she:
- Completed a half Ironman (1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike and 13.1-mile run). She did it for fun, but finished second in her division.
- Received a call-up to the U.S. under-20 soccer team as it prepares for the U-20 Women’s World Cup later this year in Poland.
- Flew to Eagle Glacier, Alaska, to train with the U.S. cross-country ski team.
After returning to Stanford in July for preseason, Smith made 14 starts in 25 matches, including the postseason, where the Cardinal lost 1-0 to Florida State in the championship. Two days later, in pure Hannah Montana fashion, she was back in Alaska, preparing and placing second in a U.S. SuperTour race.
The juggle between sports meant Smith had only one shot at qualifying for the Games. On Jan. 17, barely a month into the ski season and only a month after that NCAA final, Smith put together a career-best performance to secure her spot on Team USA at the World Cup in Oberhof, Germany.
Her drive comes from within, but it helps that Smith was encouraged to try out for just about every sport alongside her two siblings growing up. In addition to soccer and cross-country skiing, she also tried freestyle skiing, track, lacrosse, hockey and tackle football (Smith was a running back).
“Honestly, I took a liking to everything,” Smith said. “There’d be years where I was doing upwards of 10 or 11 sports a year.”
Again: For Smith, it’s not that she can’t decide — it’s that she’d rather challenge herself and others to push limits.
Pop icon supporting English youth soccer
Madonna (yes, the seven-time Grammy winner) spent the weekend pitchside at two Tottenham Hotspur games.
On a gray and chilly London day, she cheered on her twin daughters, Stella and Estere, as they played a match for Spurs’ under-14 academy team. The following day, she put on her classic bug-eye sunglasses and watched Tottenham struggle against a wounded Chelsea squad.
The Queen of Pop has a history of soccer fandom: In 2017, Madonna reportedly moved to Lisbon, Portugal, after her 11-year-old son, David Banda, joined Benfica’s youth academy. She also has a well-documented affiliation with Spurs’ foe, Chelsea, dating back to her marriage to Guy Ritchie, a well-known Chelsea fan, between 2000 and 2008. Additionally, Madonna is closely tied to Chelsea board member Barbara Charone, a UK-based American public relations veteran.
Now, it’s Madonna’s 13-year-old twins who have led her back pitchside as Spurs’ women’s academy — open to players aged 12-18 — is an area of increasing focus for general manager Andy Rogers and the club’s hierarchy.
Continuing with the crossovers, on to someone familiar with them on the court …
NBA champ investing in Chelsea
Professional basketballers investing in soccer has become commonplace, especially in women’s soccer. Angel Reese has a stake in the DC Power of the Gainbridge Super League, James Harden invested in Houston Dash (and Dynamo) and Caitlin Clark was part of an investment group trying to bring soccer to Cincinnati.
In England, Lebron James is part of Liverpool’s ownership, and now Giannis Antetokounmpo is joining the Chelsea Women ownership group (after recently going through some transfer drama of his own.)
The Milwaukee Bucks forward is partnering with Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, who last year paid around $27.2 million to purchase a stake of approximately 10 percent in the reigning Women’s Super League champions. The women’s team’s ownership structure broke off from the men’s side two years ago — exactly how the split works is still unclear.
More News
Online abuse with real-world danger
Women’s soccer is a community sport. Access to players is a staple. I’ve sat through enough postgame interviews to know just how long players spend going around to every fan to take a picture, sign an autograph or just greet people.
Unfortunately, the access comes with risks. And as Charlotte Harpur reported last week, those dangers are becoming more and more frequent, including threats like “I know where you park your car.”
Liverpool midfielder Marie Hobinger’s victim statement was a particularly poignant way to start the article: “It makes me sad that women’s football is sexualised and disrespected. No woman, no matter her job, should have to put up with this type of behaviour.”
The 24-year-old gave her statement during the sentencing of 42-year-old Mangal Dalal, who contacted Hobinger via social media before waiting for her at the side of the pitch. He was handed a two-year restraining order and sentenced to 18 months of community service in January after pleading guilty to stalking.
Death threats, online harassment and racial abuse have all been on the rise. In some cases, players are retreating; in others, teams are changing protocol. Chelsea Women, for example, no longer allow postgame autographs in “uncontrolled ways.”
And today, we reported that Women’s Super League Football, the organization that oversees the top two tiers of women’s football in England, is monitoring developments with X’s artificial intelligence tool Grok due to concerns regarding its creation of sexualised images.
Though accessibility is part of what makes women’s soccer special, it should not come at the expense of anyone’s safety.
🖤 Black History Month
A pair of firsts
In honor of Black History Month, we are testing your knowledge of some iconic women who’ve made a mark on the sport. Last week, we asked: Who was the first Black woman to play for the U.S. women’s national team?
OK, we started with a bit of a tricky one. Let me explain:
In 1986, 20-year-old Kim Crabbe became the first Black woman called into a USWNT camp. The striker (pictured above) was born in Virginia and played for George Mason University, winning the 1985 NCAA championship. Her team defeated the University of North Carolina 2-0. The Tar Heels’ head coach, Anson Dorrance, who had recently taken charge of the U.S. women’s team, called in Crabbe months after the victory.
“It’s crucial to be able to see people who look like you in the media and out there making a difference and creating change and being influential,” Crabbe told U.S. Soccer’s in-house media outlet in 2018, six years before the front three of Mallory Swanson, Sophia Wilson and Trinity Rodman led the team to gold at the Olympics.
“We’ve made great strides since I played in 1986. The sport has evolved in a positive direction and I’m very proud to have served as a pioneer within this beautiful game,” she said.
However, Crabbe wasn’t the first Black woman to play minutes in an official match for the U.S. Instead, 24-year-old defender Sandi Gordon earned those honors on July 9, 1987, in a 2-1 loss to Sweden.
“I have always been proud of who I am, but at the time I never thought of myself as being anything other than a player representing my country,” Gordon said.
This week’s question: Who holds the record for most NWSL goals across all competitions?