SOUTH HADLEY — American soccer star and two-time Olympic gold medalist Abby Wambach spoke at Mount Holyoke College’s Chapin Auditorium on Thursday, urging a largely female crowd of about 800 to keep dreaming.
The crowd’s roar vibrated the room as Wambach graced the stage. She covered a lot of ground, talking about everything from her substance abuse issues to the controversial issue of taking a knee during the national anthem.
Wambach enjoyed a highly successful career for the U.S. women’s national soccer team. She is the program’s all-time leading scorer and holds the record for most international goals for men and women. In 2012, she was named FIFA World Player of the Year.
Wambach retired in December after 15 years with the team.
“I thought I was going to sail off into the sunset,” she said, but “personal struggles” kicked in.
Her marriage to soccer player Sarah Huffman seemed like it was falling apart, she said, and she began to self-medicate.
“The best thing of my life happened April 2 of last year,” she said. “I got a DUI.”
While she referred to the drunk-driving arrest as “the most publicly shaming thing you can think of,” she said it threw her an opportunity to reevaluate her life and get back on track.
“This whole book process took an interesting turn,” she said, referencing her new memoir, “Forward.”
“As long as we can talk about stuff freely and openly it makes it a little less scary,” she said. “Because I was on this pedestal for so long, I started to shame myself into a closet of overindulgence.”
In the time since her retirement, she said, she’s been busily meeting with world leaders and fighting for equality. She dons a T-shirt that reads: “world feminist.”
“We have to dream about things that aren’t yet created,” she said.
“Think of your 10-year-old self,” she kept telling the crowd. “We all have that natural ability to actually create the life that we want.”
She told the crowd to find what they like to do and, like her with fellow U.S. star Mia Hamm, watch and listen closely to those doing it well.
Watching the 1999 World Cup, she said, changed everything for her.
“For those of you who don’t know what that is, leave the room,” she said, referencing how Hamm led the U.S. women’s national team to victory. The crowd laughed knowingly. “It really put women’s professional sports on the map.”
Wambach’s appearance was sponsored through the Weissman Center for Leadership. The lecture was the first in the “imagination series.”
Wambach’s support for the LGBTQ movement and her fight for gender equality, center Director Becky Wai-Ling Packard said, “really resonated with our message at Mount Holyoke.”
Following the talk, Wambach took questions and signed copies of her new book. One woman in the audience asked about Wambach’s opinion on San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and U.S. national women’s soccer team player Megan Rapinoe taking a knee during the national anthem, which has sparked outrage and support.
“Having competed for my country I understand patriotism,” said Wambach. “But what Megan and Colin are doing is actually patriotic.”
Wambach talked a lot about moments and seizing them when they come. She referred to her game-tying goal against Brazil in the 2011 World Cup as one such moment of opportunity.
“Sometimes it takes real bravery to say, you know, I could really screw this up,” she said.
Amanda Drane can be contacted at adrane@gazettenet.com.