1. What motivates you on a daily basis?
So I think for me, if I’m choosing to be here and not be back in New York with them, of course, I’m going to take advantage of every minute that I’m not there, and I’m not going to waste my time not being there. So I think for me, I’m making this sacrifice to be here. So why would I waste my time and time away from my family to not basically train as hard as I can every day.
2. Who’s the player on the Courage that doesn’t get enough credit?
For Britt, she’s a little bit older. She’s just a year younger than me, and her attitude is just so phenomenal. I’m just very grateful that she is getting the recognition now, because she kind of just sucked it up at the beginning of the season, when it would have been very easy for her to just kind of have a bad attitude — and she never would. And so I think that for me, Britt definitely is someone that I very much admire as far as how she has handled herself, as long as I’ve been on the team with her.
3. What’s something on your bucket list you want to get accomplished in the next year?
I mean if we’re talking like fun bucket list, I really want to go to Greece. So is that an answer that people are giving? Probably going to stick with that I think.
4. How do you learn from mistakes on and off the field?
Then hopefully going forward, you know, if you find yourself in a similar situation, hopefully you react or have made enough of a change to see that the next time you’re in that situation and close differently. And then if it does, great, and if it doesn’t then, reflect a little bit more and be like, what about this situation have I not truly examined?
5. What’s your go-to pump-up song?
This is gonna be for sure acurveball, but really I listen to “Fix You” by Coldplay before every game. It has a really good build towards the end and there’s this video from the 2014 Men’s World Cup. And it has a little like pump up speech at the beginning. Then it’s followed by “Fix You” at the end and I watch that video before every game.
6. Name a time being a professional athlete opened the door to a unique or special experience.
Then the second time was, I want to say for some weekend, Memorial Day weekend, maybe and our flight from Houston got canceled. They were like there’s like no other flights. Everything’s booked and we couldn’t even get that day they were like there’s no private planes that you can take because everything is booked. So we ended up like staying the night and the next morning, we would have not been able to leave until — we were supposed travel home Sunday. They were like the next available commercial flight is Wednesday. So it was basically the only option. But again the club pulled through and made it happen for us and we were not stranded in Houston.
7. Everyone has favorite foods, but what’s your least favorite?
I mean, I do like tuna. I like swordfish — all that. I’m not big on lobster or shrimp. Neither. Oysters — don’t even get me started on oysters. I got all upset earlier this year, because I was like, “Hot take — oysters are overrated.”
People eat them because they like lemon juice and hot sauce. That’s what you’re enjoying when you need an oyster.
8. What was a big win of mind over matter in soccer?
That was definitely for me a situation of like, I just I’m gonna ignore what I’m feeling and it’s gonna be fine once I started playing, and I ended up getting an assist. So it all worked out. But that for me for sure.
Mike, our strength and conditioning coach — we all say like, if you get a compliment from Mike, it’s a huge deal. He texted me the next day and was like, “very impressed with your ability to kind of just decide to keep playing. I was like, “wow, I’ve made it.”
9. What venue has been your favorite place to play?
You know, Portland is always going to be Portland. Their fans are just in a league of their own. So we were We were recently in Portland the day of the game. We were walking down the street, and Katelyn [Rowland] was just singing their chants. I was like, “Katelyn, we can’t!” She was like, “they’re just so good.”
Intense fans! They look you in the eye and yell at you. And you’re like,
10. What’s been your greatest achievement to date?
Winning the ICC. We just like to rub it in everyone’s faces because of course, the next year, like we had all of our internationals there and they didn’t win, so we’re always like, we’d be, “We beat Lyon without you guys. You couldn’t even do it.”
11. Question from the last player (Malia Berkley): What’s your perfect ideal day off if money wasn’t an issue, and you could teleport anywhere? What’s your perfect day?
More Starting XI Questions
Check out the growing number of 2022 and previous seasons’ Starting XI Questions.
Look for more articles on Meredith Speck and the entire North Carolina Courage squad throughout the 2022 season here on Courage Country.