SUPER SOCCER MOM JOY FAWCETT I am a mother of three living in Rancho Santa Margarita, I'm leaving my eight house guests who slept the night at my house with my oldest daughter while I run down to San Clemente to help out a good friend with his soccer camp. Let's see, keys, drivers license, FIFA 1999 Women's World Cup Medal, 2000 Sydney Olympics Silver Medal, 1996 Atlanta Olympics Gold Medal, 2004 Athens Olympics Gold Medal, sunglasses, okay I'm ready to go. Another day in the life of Joy Fawcett, the original super soccer mom. Of the five 91ers, Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy, Kristine Lily, Brandi Chastain and Joy Fawcett. Joy has been the most successful both on and off the field in avoiding "spot light sun burn." To say she is not one to seek out the spot light is an understatement. In a world where ability, fame and accomplishment invariably invite if not drag you into the spot light, Joy has used her undeniable ability to successfully evade opponents on the soccer field to successfully find her way to the outskirts of the spotlight as well. It's just Joy. Even in the Dare to Dream Tribute Documentary put on by HBO Sports you have to watch and listen carefully during the credits to the banter between Lil and Joy to get a glimpse of Joy's sense of humor and playful side where she reminds Kristine Lily in the locker room that her "fishbelly white legs" aren't going to get any tanner going back to her East coast hometown heading into the Fall/Winter. Joy Fawcett, a living, walking (sometimes talking) piece of sports history pulls up to the Forster Fields in sunny San Clemente in her family mini-van, grabs the Albertson's bag holding her FIFA 1999 Women's World Cup Medal, 2000 Sydney Olympics Silver Medal, 1996 Atlanta Olympics Gold Medal, 2004 Athens Olympics Gold Medal from the passenger side seat and jogs up the hill from the parking lot. Joy is making a guest soccer star "meet and greet" appearance for around thirty local San Clemente kids participating in her good friend Jaime Arroyo's Soccer Academy. As non-chalantly as she took them from the passenger seat of her mini-van, Joy removes the FIFA and 3 Olympic Medals from the Albertson's bag and begins passing them around as she explains to the girls that if they look on the edges or sides of the Olympic Medals they will see the specific sport for which the Medal was awarded engraven on the Medal. Joy freely passes all four medals around for each player to hold, see and even try on. It was truly an inspiring experience to watch these sixth grade girls, many of whom had decorated their soccer shirts, hair and or faces with red, white and blue in anticipation of meeting soccer legend Joy Fawcett sheepishly put an Olympic Gold Medal around their own eleven year old neck. True to her easy going style Joy never once stopped sharing experiences or answering questions to check on the medals all of which were handled and handed from player to player as much like religious relics as athletic awards. Ironically, the Medal for arguably the World's Most Famous Championship Match (Men's or Womens) the FIFA 1999 Women's World Cup Medal had the least design, size, pomp or circumstance to it. Along that same vein, even though critics might consider the Sydney 2000 Olympics Silver Medal "the loss of a Gold medal" the teal blue ribbon and Sydney Opera House design on that particular medal was stunning in appearance. As any good mother and seasoned professional athlete Joy seems to have included that particular medal with a message in mind. Joy told the kids that she loves that Sydney medal as much as the others because of the journey, good memories and great friendships which the Sydney medal represents. Despite her "under cover and largely low key lifestyle", Joy appears to have figured out long before any one else that you can be both an awesome mother and an accomplished world class female athlete. Former Head Coach of the US Women's National Soccer Team, Tony Dicicco says of Joy: Joy Fawcett is an example of a wonderful role model. She is not only a gifted athlete but also a mother who, in 1999 as we were competing for the World Cup, had two lovely daughters (she now has three), and the team referred to her as Super Mom. Joy may never have been looked upon by the American media or the general public as one of the best players on the National Team, but she was. She wasn't a hard-knocks defender, a blunt instrument who would go out there and knock players over and take the ball away. Instead, she had intelligence, grace and skill that allowed her to pick an opponents pocket so to speak. If an attacking player was moving toward the goal, dribbling the ball, there wasn't any collision and there wasn't any foul. But there was a skillful and tenacious Joy Fawcett spiriting the ball away from her opponent and taking it up the field to begin the American attack. Joy had an amazing consistency in the way she played, game in and game out. In 1996 when we were tied 1-1 with China in the Olympic Gold medal game, it was Joy who broke in behind the defense, attracted the last defender, kept the attention of the goal keeper and slid the ball across the goal to Tiffeny Milbrett, who scored the winning goal. In 1999, when we were behind against Germany in a very tense quarterfinal game of the World Cup in Washington D.C., Joy headed in a corner kick that gave us the lead, 3-2, and proved to be the winning goal. The fact that Joy could play her position as flawlessly as she did and step in and play other positions, as well as come forward and score when we needed a critical goal, made her a perfect role model. With Joy it was all about consistency, and we celebrated that quality. That acknowledgement created a model for other players to imitate and try to replicate in their own unique way. In other words, we didn't want carbon copies of Joy Fawcett, we wanted each player to look to Joy, to see how she played to her potential and then do the same by playing up to theirs. Joy presently coaches a club league in Saddleback, Orange County California and plays co-ed soccer in a Newport Beach League with her brothers, sisters and family friends, her father Terry is the team coach/manager and her sister Kathy Redfield is their team captain. |