Image courtesy of National Soccer Hall of Fame
On January 30, 2022, the National Soccer Hall of Fame announced that they would be inducting two heavy hitters from the United State’s Women’s National Team (USWNT): Shannon Boxx and Hope Solo. Clint Dempsey of the male’s national team was elected to the Hall of Fame as well. For any fan of the United States Women’s National Team, Boxx and Solo are household names. Both women have had wildly successful careers in soccer, and each deserve their own spotlight.
Shannon Boxx is a Los Angeles native who played midfield for the U.S. team. Between 2003 and 2015, the year of her retirement, Boxx made 195 appearances, three Olympic championships, a World Cup medal, and twice a postseason Best XI selection. Currently, Boxx is the 13th most capped player (meaning player with the 13th most international games) in USWNT history and has accumulated 27 goals for the team. She was also the oldest female player at 26 years old to make an international debut. Boxx was able to achieve all of this while living with lupus, an autoimmune disease that attacks healthy tissue and causes intensely painful joint flare ups. In addition to lupus, Boxx was also diagnosed with Sjogren’s Syndrome, an autoimmune disease which manifests itself in the form of joint pain and dryness of the eyes and mouth.
In 2015 when speaking with Sports Illustrated about her health conditions, Boxx said that “Perseverance and hard work—those things paid off for me.” Despite her illnesses, Boxx persevered, earning a gold medal along with the rest of her team in the 2015 Olympics. She is also a mixed race woman, half Black and half white, and has paved the way for many BIPOC girls looking to make it big in soccer. Many resources that the predominately white team had access to on their journey to stardom are unevenly displaced to communities of wealth. Nonetheless, Boxx became one of the most talented and respected female athletes in the sport, and she even has a sister, Gillian Boxx, who’s a fellow Olympian and plays softball. Needless to say, Boxx is a highly decorated soccer veteran who has rightfully earned her place in the National Soccer Hall of Fame.
Similarly, Hope Solo’s soccer career is filled with accolades. USWNT’s 2009 Player of the Year, Solo has played 202 full games with the USWNT from the span of 2000-2016, won a World Cup medal, two Olympic medals, and two Golden Glove Awards. Additionally, in 2005, Solo became the number 1 ranked goalkeeper for FIFA, she held this title for over a decade. It was not until Solo played at University of Washington that she became a full time goalkeeper, yet she was reluctant to make the commitment to that position. In her autobiography Solo: A Memoir of Hope, Solo writes, “In high school, I had been the forward who won games. It was a huge mental adjustment to learn that my job was to save games.” Clearly, the move paid off. However, it is worth noting that Solo did not retire from the sport as most other players do; she was fired. In 2016, Solo made unsportsmanlike comments about opposing teams that ultimately led to her indefinite suspension.
While the USWNT dominates the world of female soccer, and players such as Boxx and Solo are being acknowledged for their athletic accomplishments, FIFA still has a long way to go when it comes to gender equality. The United States Women’s National Team is filled with young, new up-and-comers, but it’s important to remember the powerful women that have come before them. The USWNT also still fights for equal pay among the teams. Due to their FIFA ranking as the number 1 women’s team in the world, it would seem logical that the women’s team get paid more than the US men’s team, which is ranked 11 in the world according to FIFA. However, this is not the case. Shannon Boxx has commented on this serious issue, calling FIFA out directly by saying that “FIFA is obviously [their] governing body, [but] [the USWNT] struggled with them on the whole equality piece.”