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Nicole is one of America’s top female soccer players. She played on the 2007 Women’s World Cup and 2008 Olympic teams, and she is a volunteer coach for the Stanford women’s soccer team.

Nicole’s advice for kids about perseverance is:

“I played on boy’s teams growing up, which was a challenge itself, but one that I think helped build me into the person and player I am today. When I first tried out for the State ODP (Olympic Development Program) team, I actually only made the B team, where I saw limited playing time. In high school, I was on the boy’s team (we didn’t have a girls team), and again, I didn’t see much playing time. My freshman year of college, I think I played in a total of four games all season, and that was just a few odd minutes here and there. My sophomore year of college, I tore my ACL, so I missed that whole season. In 2006, I did not play in a single game for the national team. To start 2007, the year of the World Cup, I was not on contract or even in training camp with the national team. In May, 2008 (a month before they were naming the Olympic roster) I had knee surgery. Despite all of this, I made the World Cup Team, where we won bronze and I made the Olympic Team, where we won gold. Had I given up at any point in this journey where things were not going my way, I definitely would not be where I am today.

I know that many people will get angry, upset, frustrated, and down when things don’t go well, they lose a game, or maybe they are not getting the playing time they think they deserve, but my message to them is that I have three times been a member of teams for world championship competitions. Despite not playing a single second, I helped our team in those events, and I have a silver and bronze medal from the World Cup, and a gold medal from the Olympics to show for it. And you know what else I have? Many amazing memories and friendships from the journey.”