Lessons To Take From Reading This Special Letter
After reading Brandi Chastain’s emotional, thoughtful and inspirational letter, here are three lessons that SoccerToday took away. Lessons that are sure to inspire and encourage young female athletes for many generations to come.
An ambassador of the world’s favorite sport, Brandi Chastain has helped created history with the U.S. Women’s National Team on many occasions. She has played on the USWNT during the inaugural Women’s World Cup in 1991 and then a second time during the 1995 World Cup. In 1995, she made history after scoring the final penalty kick–helping her team become World Champions a second time. After doing so, Chastain fell to her knees and ripped her jersey off in celebration–a photo that remains iconic to this day.
Brandi has also helped her team become Gold medalists at the 1996 Atlanta and 2004 Athens Summer Olympics. During her international career, she scored 30 goals, 26 assists and 192 caps. Now retired, Chastain commentates on soccer matches for ABC-ESPN, hosts soccer camps, and is the Varsity Soccer Coach in San Jose at Bellarmine College Preparatory School. Brandi is a passionate advocate and ambassador for the Capital One Cup and is proud of their impact on college sports. She also serves on the Advisory Board for the Capital One Cup—a NCAA Division I athletics award that is awarded annually to each of the best men’s and women’s Division I college athletics programs in the country. Adding onto her career as an author, Brandi Chastain has now penned a letter to her younger self published on The Players Tribune.
1. Learn:
In her letter, Chastain advises her younger self to always question, and to always ask those questions—a process that would help her become not only a better player, but a better person. By continually learning about her health, her body, and life in general, Chastain would mature and develop perspective—something that she says her younger help did not have much of.Soccer has evidently meant a great deal to Brandi and after reading this letter, we see just how much.
As we go through her letter, we feel the joy, happiness, sadness, frustration and confusion Chastain has ever felt in her career—especially when she was left off the roster for the 1995 World Cup team. “That will hurt you the most,” writes Chastain.
But instead of letting her pain and hurt drive her away from the sport, Chastain advises her younger self to turn it into a learning moment. She goes on to write, “Watch your hurt take shape into determination. Use your stubbornness for good and make your way back to the national team. Really look at yourself and ask hard questions. Try to understand what about you as a player may have contributed to being cut but don’t get lost in that inward spiral.”
2. Communicate:
In her soccer career, Chastain has battled “two ACL tears and a meniscus tear”causing her to miss out on the field action. As readers, we feel Brandi’s frustration during these moments—but we also see her optimistic and positive spirit as the World Champion advises her younger self to be patient and introspective. By doing so, not only will it help her persevere in the future, but also allow her to become more in tune with her body. Communicating with herself in regards to how she’s feeling, her health and fitness, will ultimately lay the foundations for Chastain to be a better player.
Communication extends to her teammates as well. In her letter, we see how fond Chastain is of her teammates—women she calls her “sisters” and “support system”. Brandi recalls a specific moment in her career when the USWNT went on “strike to dispute the contract offered by U.S. Soccer.” Tony DiCicco had invited Chastain back to the USWNT—Brandi was now left with the decision to either return to the National team, something she had worked incredibly hard for, or join her teammates in solidarity. She had to choose between herself and her team. ” It will be a sensitive point: you acting with your team or acting selfishly,” Chastain says.Her advice: “Talk to someone. Get some perspective. Your teammate Julie Foudy will encourage you to go into camp. She wants the best for the team but she always wants the best for individual people. Her support will stay with you for the rest of your life. And when you make the choice to join the camp, don’t think about what would’ve happened had you not. U.S. Soccer will be better for it.” By communicating with fellow teammate, soccer star, and World Champion Julie Foudy, Chastain gained perspective and did what was right in the end. Communication helped guide her and progress in her career.
3. Be True To Yourself
After reading this letter, we see that Brandi has gone through many challenges and obstacles through her life—but by being true to herself and maintaining a positive outlook, she has been able to successfully overcome them. Chastain’s iconic photograph increased her media coverage and made her a celebrity of sorts. However, in 1999 for Brandi to rip her jersey off in celebration—an act that was seen to be reserved for male athletes only—history was made. The U.S. Women’s National Team and Brandi helped elevate women’s soccer and female soccer players.
Chastain’s letter sheds lights on the sexist remarks and commentary she faced soon afterwards. How she handled it and how she advises her younger self is inspiring and brilliant. She chose to be herself—to remain true to who she is so that she can help bring about a movement in which young girls feel encouraged to get onto the pitch and play. “When you do interview after interview, where everyone asks why, be yourself,” Chastain writes beautifully. “For so long, female soccer players lived in an anonymous world with the desperate desire for the sport to be mainstream. Women wanted young girls to have something to aspire to — to see it. So do every interview you have to. Drive the conversation. Give soccer a voice. You’ve already given it an image.” A message that will truly inspire the future generation of U.S. Women’s Soccer as well as the current.
Read Brandi Chastain’s letter to her younger self here.
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