Julie Foudy was a soccer midfielder, two-time FIFA Women’s World Cup champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist. She played for the United States women’s national soccer team from 1988 to 2004. Foudy finished her international career with 274 caps and served as the team’s captain from 2000 to 2004 as well as the co-captain from 1991 to 2000.^[2] In 1997, she was the first American and first woman to receive the FIFA Fair Play Award.

From 2000 to 2002, Foudy served as president of the Women’s Sports Foundation. In 2006, she co-founded the Julie Foudy Sports Leadership Academy, an organization focused on developing leadership skills in teenage girls. In 2007, she was inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame with her teammate, Mia Hamm. She is currently an analyst, reporter and the primary color commentator for women’s soccer telecasts on ESPN.

Foudy attended Stanford University, where she was honored as the Stanford Cardinal women’s soccer Player of the Year for three straight years (1989–91).^[5][6] She was a four-time NSCAA All-American at Stanford and finished her collegiate career with 52 goals, 32 assists and 136 points in 78 appearances. She was named the 1991 Soccer America Player of the Year and the 1989 Soccer America Freshman of the Year and was a two-time finalist for the Hermann Trophy in 1991 and 1992. She helped lead the Cardinal to NCAA tournament playoff berths all four years. She was the recipient of the Stanford Outstanding Freshman, Sophomore and Junior Athlete Award and was named to Soccer America’s College Team of the Decade for the 1990s.^[7]

Foudy is the author of Choose to Matter: Being Courageously and Fabulously YOU^[3] and appeared in the HBO documentary Dare to Dream: The Story of the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team.^[4] She was the executive producer of the documentary short, An Equal Playing Field, starring Christen Press and producer of the ESPN Nine for IX episode entitled The 99ers, featuring some of her teammates from the 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup-winning U.S. national team.