I had a chance to meet one of my childhood heroes this month. Practically handed to me on a silver platter, and I’m still deciding if I blew it or not.
When Duke’s honorary degree recipients got announced, I audibly gasped when I saw Abby Wambach. I mentioned my admiration to my boss, who kindly assigned me to help work the dinner. I assisted one of our photographers by using “my Devil Wears Prada binder” with names and photos, making sure we caught everyone we needed to capture.
I got a little too wrapped up in trying to come up with what I was going to say if I got to meet her.
I kept practicing throughout the day, like “Hey Abby, big fan, could I grab a picture?” No, that feels so clinical, and impersonal. Also too much turning her into a photo op; she’s a person. I don’t want to bother her. She probably gets this all the time, and what if she wants to have an evening away from all that.
Then I started to think, well, I could talk about women’s sports, I love women’s sports, “Hey, did you catch the WNBA games today? That Wings/Fever game was insane!” No, that’s so close to “how bout’ dem Bears,” which makes me feel like an old white man.
Then I thought about gushing about how much her representation meant to me as a little queer kid who played soccer. How much her work means to me now. How I felt, by getting to see her personality and passion on the big screen and all over the internet, but then that sounded so embarrassing. Like if I am giving a speech at a dinner full of probably exhausting banter with strangers, the last thing I would want is to be somewhat ambushed at the end by some blurry-eyed fan.
Abby Wambach was one of the first USWNT players that I saw a lot of myself in. The way she leads, she gets rowdy, she gets passionate. She truly wears all of her emotions right out in the open. She was a badass on the field—filled to the brim with strength, passion, and infectious excitement.
She is never small. She takes up space. She has been nothing but herself.
I was a huge fan of the USWNT during a time when I felt like I had to make myself smaller to keep playing soccer, and in life generally. I went to a school with a lot of girls who were capital T tiny as well as pretty soft spoken. I was supposed to be the good, little, Christian girl who did as she was told, but I was loud, big, passionate, opinionated. I only followed the rules out of fear, and was desperately clinging to the closet.
Abby and really the whole USWNT were a breath of fresh air to watch. Their play style was intense, they were smart, some were loud, and boy, was Abby dangerous in the box. I modeled after them a lot. I celebrated loudly, wearing my heart on my sleeve. On the pitch I could be big, passionate, rowdy, and filled to the brim with strength, and eventually off the pitch I got there too.
Watching her at the reception, I could see she’s as magnetic and kind as she seems on screen. She wore a dark suit with contrasting sparkly tennis shoes—rad and unabashedly her. Which just made me smile big.
I decided to just be present and listen to her short speech. If a moment happened organically, I’d take it. But I didn’t want to force anything. It honestly felt selfish to obsess over how I’d meet her and what I’d say, when this is a person who is celebrating a moment, earned—she should get to revel in it, unbothered, with the people she brought.
She told stories I’d heard before on her podcast or in her book—but hearing her say them out loud, in the room, with conviction and the slightest wobble in her voice, made me teary. She talked about her English teacher making her write before class, and how each time she’d write, “I am Abby Wambach, and I will be an Olympic soccer player.” This was during a time when an Olympic women’s soccer team didn’t even exist yet. She elaborated on outrageous audacity—how it takes audacity to dream a thing into existence, to persevere until it comes true, and how our world needs more of it. It was like she was breathing fire into my lungs. Kerosene on a wildfire. I started to see why the USWNT won so much—you just can’t help but to rally behind her. I was listening from the door, smiling ear to ear with glistening eyes.
I am someone who has a lot of big feelings, and ‘freight train tendencies.’ I have always been told that I talk too much, I am a little too loud, or that I am too whimsical, too much of a dreamer.
But hearing Abby’s speech and seeing her up on a stage in bright sparkly shoes made me feel like that’s exactly what I have to be.
I am Izzy Nunez, I dream audaciously, and I will get to truly meet Abby Wambach, someday.
Izzy Nunez graduated from Calvin in 2022 after studying graphic design and sociology. Today she lives in North Carolina where she is living out her dream of being a graphic designer.
