Page 34 - Sports Illustrated for Kids Magazine (December 2019)

Ally would end up playing the
beautiful game. “Soccer’s a very big
deal around here,” says her mom,
Lee. “It’s just kind of what you did.
You signed your kid up for
kindergarten, and you signed
them up for soccer.”

Younger sister Katelyn, now 14,
and brother William, 11, followed
suit. As much as Ally adored
soccer—“I look back at all the
pictures and see a huge smile on
my face,” she says—she also really
liked gymnastics.
“My dream was to go to the
Olympics in both soccer and
gymnastics,” says Ally. “I thought I
was going to be this insane double-
sport athlete.”
By the time she was nine, she was
doing well in gymnastics age-group
competitions, traveling for soccer
tournaments, and spending up to
four hours a day after school
participating in one or both sports.
HOME AWAY
“I would keep missing gymnastics
FROM HOME
practice because I would just want Ally (33), who has
to stay after for soccer,” recalls Ally. been at South
“We would have scrimmages after Shore Select since
she was seven,
practice just for fun for whoever
now plays with its
wanted to stay, and I was like, ‘Mom, girls’ development
can I please stay?’ She was like, ‘Yes, academy team. She

of course, but you’re going to have to also trains with the
boys’ academy
tell your gymnastics coaches that
team once or
you’re not going to do gymnastics twice per week.
anymore.’ I was like, ‘O.K!’ ”
One spring day in 2016, U-14 national team coach
April Kater was at a regional combine in Pennsylvania.
She had been hearing from a program scout in
New England about an up-and-coming player from
Massachusetts, and she was eager to see the talented
12-year-old play against the best in the Northeast.
“We had to bump her up to the older group because it “My first camp I was really nervous,” says Ally. “I don’t
was too easy for her,” remembers Kater, now the director think I spoke a lot at that camp. I was cooped up in my
of club development at Real Colorado Soccer. “We were room. My roommate [current U-17 teammate Emma
putting her two years up. That’s when I knew she was Egizii] was awesome, though. She tried to get me into the
ready to bring into youth national team camp.” mix of things. I played O.K., but I didn’t really play as well
Ally, again playing up two age groups, impressed the as I could have.”
coaches at that U-14 camp in Colorado—“Right away, you She did, however, have a blast. “She loved everything
could tell she had the ability, the mentality, the focus, the about it,” says Lee. “She loved meeting all these other kids WINSLOW TOWNSON (2)
competitive edge,” says Kater—despite the fact that she who loved soccer as much as she did. She loved getting

was the youngest one there. pushed. She loved getting honest feedback and people

34 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED KIDS