Julie Foudy

Julie Foudy (born January 23, 1971, San Diego, California, U.S.) is a retired football (soccer) midfielder who won two FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) World Cup championships (1991 and 1999) and two gold medals (1996 and 2004) during her career with the U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT). As cocaptain of the U.S. squad from 1991 to 2000 and as the team’s sole captain from 2000 to 2004, Foudy was a leading figure in the nascent years—often called the “golden era”—of U.S. women’s football, alongside her teammates Mia Hamm, Joy Fawcett, and Kristine Lilly.

Early life, joining USWNT, and first World Cup

Foudy was born the youngest of four kids in San Diego, California, to parents she affectionately calls Slim Jim and Fruity Judy. She grew up in a suburb of Irvine, California, where her prodigious talents on the football field were evident early. At age 7 Foudy joined the traveling football team called the Mission Viejo Soccerettes, with whom she played for 10 years. In high school she was voted High School Player of the 1980s by the Los Angeles Times. By the age of 16 she had become a member of the USWNT, and at age 17 she traveled with the team to China. There, FIFA staged an invitational tournament in 1988 that ultimately convinced the organization to support a Women’s World Cup. The first championship was held in 1991, also in China. Foudy scored her first World Cup goal during a quarterfinal match, and six days later she helped give the United States its first Women’s World Cup title.

Stanford, Olympics, marriage, and other milestones

Meanwhile, in 1989, Foudy enrolled as a premed student at Stanford University, where she also played for the Cardinal. She graduated in 1993 with a degree in biology, but she turned down an offer to study at the Stanford School of Medicine. After college Foudy played for the Sacramento Storm (later the California Storm) of the USL W League (1993 and 1995–98) and for Tyresö Football Club in Sweden for one season (1994). In 1995 she married Ian Sawyers, whom she had met in the 1980s when he was coach of the Mission Viejo Herricanes, and she played for the Soccerettes. That same year the United States finished in third place at the World Cup in Sweden, but the team won the gold medal at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. That was the inaugural year of women’s football at the international tournament. In 1997 Foudy traveled to Pakistan to survey the factory conditions of Reebok, her sponsor, and ensure that no child labor was involved. She subsequently became the first woman and the first American to receive the FIFA Fair Play Award.

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1999 World Cup, Olympics, and the San Diego Spirit

At the 1999 World Cup, held in the United States, Foudy was a key player in the legendary run for the cup that ended with the United States winning in a thrilling penalty shoot-out against China. At the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, the Americans took home the silver medal, but, led by Foudy, they again won gold at the 2004 Olympics in Athens. Between the Olympic Games, Foudy played with the San Diego Spirit (2001–03) in the Women’s United Soccer Association. In 2004, after playing some 270 games with the USWNT, Foudy retired.

Career and life after football

Foudy made her debut on ESPN as a studio analyst for the 1998 World Cup and joined the network in 2005 as a women’s football and FIFA World Cup analyst. Her role expanded over the years to include a variety of assignments, including hosting the podcast Laughter Permitted with Julie Foudy (debuted in 2019) for the network’s women-focused brand, espnW. In 2006 Foudy founded the Julie Foudy Sports Leadership Academy, through which she helps girls to become role models on and off the field, and in 2007 she was inducted into the U.S. National Soccer Hall of Fame. That same year she gave birth to her daughter Isabel and in 2008 her son Declan. In 2017 Foudy published Choose to Matter: Being Courageously and Fabulously YOU, a book on leadership for young women. In 2020 she announced that she was investing in the newest franchise in the National Women’s Soccer League, Angel City Football Club. The team began play in Los Angeles in 2022.