Dan Raley sought out former U.S. women’s national team star Michelle Akers in Florida, and found her busy being a mother to her three-year-old son, as well as rescuing abused horses and nursing them back to health. But she still has plenty to say about soccer eight years after leaving the game due to a combination of injuries and chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome.
Akers told Raley how she rejected the country’s top women’s college program at North Carolina in favor of Central Florida. “I didn’t like the coach [Anson Dorrance], so I didn’t go there,” she said. “I thought he was very conceited. Frankly, I thought my club team was better than his team. The way he pitched it, the package, the deal, the team, it just wasn’t what I wanted to be part of. They were national champions, and I didn’t like his demeanor. Central Florida wasn’t polished, the forerunner, the expected winner. They were like blue-collar workhorses, and that’s why I liked them.”
Akers, who scored 105 goals for the U.S. and won two World Cups, also talked about motherhood. “I wasn’t ready to have a kid until I did,” she said. “For me, it’s been a huge learning curve. I wasn’t one who went out and hugged kiddies. Once I had a son, it was, ‘How cool is this?’ But it was also, ‘How do you give him a bath, how do you hold him, how do you wrap a blanket around him?'”
Because her right knee needs more reconstructive surgery, Akers can’t even kick a ball any more, but doesn’t feel any pressure to go under the knife. “I don’t even have a soccer ball on the property,” she said. “I’m having so much fun with horses and life now, it just doesn’t occur to me anymore.”