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NY Times, June 28, 2019
For Megan Rapinoe, Boldness in the Spotlight Is Nothing New
By Jeré Longman
PARIS — The interview room was packed with reporters and television
cameras. Fox Sports went live with a telecast, as if it were covering a
presidential news conference. In an indirect way, it was.
Then Megan Rapinoe, the star forward for the United States women’s
soccer team and a social activist, stood her ground. At a regularly
scheduled news conference for the team on Thursday, she reiterated that
she would refuse to visit the White House if the Americans won the
Women’s World Cup, regardless of President Trump’s criticism of her via
Twitter on Wednesday.
That move probably didn’t surprise anyone. It is difficult to imagine an
athlete who appears more assured in her views and comfortable in the
spotlight than Ms. Rapinoe. She has, after all, dyed her hair lavender
for the tournament, a sign of her willingness to stand out.
Recently, she became the first openly gay athlete to appear in the
Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. She and her partner, the basketball
star Sue Bird, last year became the first gay couple to be featured in
ESPN’s Body Issue, in which athletes pose without their clothes.
Ms. Rapinoe has led the way in the women’s national team’s lawsuit
against U.S. Soccer, accusing the federation of gender discrimination.
She has referred to herself as “a walking protest” of the Trump
administration. On the field and off, she has relished the big stage and
has sought to use the public platform provided by the success of the
national team to advance both women’s soccer and broader social issues.
“If you want to be in this profession, it’s best to embrace those big
moments,” Ms. Rapinoe said Thursday. “That’s where all the goods are.”
In a statement before the news conference — held to discuss Friday’s
much-anticipated quarterfinal match in Paris between the World Cup’s two
favorites, the United States and France — Ms. Rapinoe apologized for
having used an obscenity when dismissing the idea of a White House
visit. That comment came in a videotaped interview with the soccer
magazine 8 by 8 earlier this year.
She even doubled down on Thursday, suggesting that she would encourage
her teammates not to visit the White House, either. She said she did not
want a decades-long fight for equality and inclusivity by the American
team to be “co-opted by an administration that doesn’t feel the same way
and doesn’t fight for the same things that we fight for.”
Ms. Rapinoe did not directly address Mr. Trump’s criticism of her, in
which he wrote on Twitter that she “should never disrespect our country,
the White House or our flag.”
He also wrote: “I am a big fan of the American Team, and Women’s Soccer,
but Megan should WIN first before she TALKS! Finish the job!”
Ms. Rapinoe, who will be 34 next week, was asked Thursday whether her
jousting with Mr. Trump might distract her team at such an important
moment in the World Cup, or destabilize the American locker room. She
said emphatically that it would not. “I think, if anything, it just
fires everybody up a little more,” she said.
Ms. Rapinoe has been heavily influenced as an athlete and as an activist
by an older brother, Brian, who is 38. When Ms. Rapinoe and her twin,
Rachael, were growing up in Redding, Calif., it was their brother who
led them into soccer and vigorously challenged them in two-on-one pickup
basketball games, instilling in the sisters an unrelenting approach.
In his adult life, Brian Rapinoe has struggled with drug addiction, and
both he and Megan have spoken openly of his issues. On Thursday, Ms.
Rapinoe acknowledged that her brother’s struggles had influenced her
social conscience, her views on drug reform and her desire to help
protect society’s most vulnerable people.
Brian Rapinoe has been in and out of jail for a series of drug-related
crimes. According to the California Department of Corrections, he is in
custody in a community re-entry program in San Diego and will be
eligible for parole in August.
Ms. Rapinoe said she had come to realize that those incarcerated for
drug addictions were “just normal people; they’re your brothers and your
friends and your family.” In influencing her sense of social justice,
she said, her brother’s story “has a lot of ramifications outside of
drug abuse.”
Most notably, Ms. Rapinoe began kneeling during the national anthem in
2016 to protest systemic racism and police violence in solidarity with
Colin Kaepernick, then the San Francisco 49ers quarterback. U.S. Soccer
later began requiring players to “stand respectfully.”
Now Ms. Rapinoe stands for the anthem but does not sing or place her
hand over her heart. On Thursday, she declined to detail exactly what
her protest entails. But earlier this month, Ms. Rapinoe told Lizzy
Goodman for a story in The New York Times Magazine that her involvement
in social issues reflected the work of movements like Time’s Up, #MeToo,
Black Lives Matter and L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy.
“To me, it’s literally all the same, insofar as I want people to respect
who I am, what I am — being gay, being a woman, being a professional
athlete, whatever,” Ms. Rapinoe said in the article. “That is the exact
same thing as what Colin did.”
She added: “What kind of person do you want to be for yourself, but also
in the larger context of the country and in the world?”
In that same tournament, she made one of the greatest plays in the
history of American soccer, lofting a crossing pass to Abby Wambach for
a headed goal in the 122nd minute of an eventual victory in a penalty
shootout against Brazil.
In the next match, Ms. Rapinoe came off the bench to deliver two assists
in a semifinal victory over France. Afterward, she said blithely, “I
believe I’m a fantastic player, and I try to go out there and do those
things.”
Jill Ellis, the U.S. coach, has long agreed with that assessment. She
said Thursday she was not worried about any increased pressure on the
American women, noting that they thrived under pressure.
“I think we all support Megan,” Ms. Ellis added. “She knows that.”
Ms. Rapinoe also appears to have the support of FIFA, soccer’s world
governing body. FIFA has historically been lacking in support for
women’s soccer, but at Friday’s match and at other quarterfinal games it
plans to campaign publicly for inclusivity and against discrimination of
any type.
Ms. Rapinoe was not always so comfortable in the spotlight.
In middle school, Ms. Rapinoe told Yahoo Sports in May, she felt “lost”
and “really alone.” But she began to flourish once she started
understanding her sexuality, her twin sister told Yahoo.
“Maybe part of the reason she was quiet growing up was because she felt
a little different,” Rachael Rapinoe said. “She didn’t quite feel
comfortable in her skin. But once she realized who she was and why she
felt the way she felt,” that’s when “she found strength in her voice.”
On a national team that, for two decades, has been publicly standing
against what it considers inequalities in pay, travel and playing
conditions, Ms. Rapinoe’s assertiveness has helped give broad, fearless
license to her teammates to also demand equitable treatment and social
justice.
She spoke Thursday, as she often has, of using the platform of soccer
“for good and for leaving the game in a better place, and hopefully the
world in a better place.”
Julie Foudy, a former captain of the national team and a two-time World
Cup winner, said of Ms. Rapinoe and her teammates: “In a way that I have
never seen before, this team seems to unapologetically own their voice.
It’s O.K. to be confident. I no longer need to apologize for saying I
want to win. I don’t need to say I’m sorry because I’m competitive.”
Ms. Foudy added: “I haven’t heard that before in such a way, across the
board. Maybe that’s because you have examples like Megan, who does it so
authentically.”
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