Alex Morgan Knew How To Use The Spotlight

There’s a joke on Twitter that during the heyday of the 2010s USWNT, the team’s starting lineup was 10 lesbians and Alex Morgan. This, of course, is only true in the rosy gaze of nostalgia, but the sentiment is revealing: At the same time that the squad had a lot of openly queer players and felt like a beacon of queer female joy to many, Morgan—who is straight—was a beloved figurehead of the team, and of women’s soccer in general. To Morgan’s credit, she recognized that her whiteness, her straightness, and her conventional attractiveness gave her influence that many players of the same caliber didn’t enjoy.

Morgan leaned into her cultural cachet, but never for its own sake. She made pink pre-wrap, the number 13, her left foot, and more recently her daughter Charlie inseparable from the diplomatic and frank manner in which she has always talked to the press. She managed to create real change while maintaining a broad appeal with the public and those she works with. Sometimes this meant grinning through cartoonish idolization of her; sometimes it meant embracing publications’ desire to center her as a cultural icon. At the same time as she was racking up goals for club and country, Morgan was bolstering an unmistakable and pervasive public image, and used the influence that came with it to make change that would benefit players far less prominent than herself.

When Morgan was growing up, there was no real pathway to becoming a professional women’s soccer player. Still, she dreamt of it, and it was the eagerness with which she and her contemporaries chased that unlikely dream that allowed a league like the NWSL to gain a foothold. All three NWSL teams Morgan has played for—the Portland Thorns, Orlando Pride, and San Diego Wave—were just starting when Morgan signed with them. Teams wanted to build their locker rooms, play, and brands around her, and she wanted to build teams. 

But Morgan was never content with just having women’s leagues—she has pushed time and time again to improve them, as well as the international women’s game and general football culture. Former Tottenham coach Juan Carlos Amorós credits her for strengthening the Spurs women’s program when she played there for a few months in 2020. “She didn’t have an amazing career at Tottenham—the year was difficult,” he said. “But I think what she really did was make everyone in the club realize how important the women’s side is.” In the U.S., Morgan was on the forefront of both securing equal pay for the USWNT and creating the NWSL Anti-Harassment Policy for a Safe Work Environment, both of which were audacious projects that required the trust of fellow players. She has spoken out for improved conditions for mothers playing professional soccer and against her own club’s mistreatment of employees. She even stuck her neck out against Cristiano Ronaldo when details of his alleged sexual assault came out in 2019.

Morgan will be the first to tell you that her success would not have been possible without players who came before her. From the early years of her career, she’s spoken generously about the people she’s looked up to and learned from. After the USWNT won Olympic gold in 2012, Julie Foudy interviewed her about what the achievement felt like. “This is exactly what I dreamed of when I was a young kid. When I was watching you, this is what I dreamed of,” the 23-year-old player said, choking up as she spoke to the ‘99er. Morgan never played with Foudy, and she only gets more effusive when describing the impact of players she’s shared the field with. 

In a 2022 podcast interview with Abby Wambach and Glennon Doyle, Morgan recalled that when she first joined the USWNT as a college player, Wambach “started just saying these things like, ‘You’re going to score more goals than I’ll ever score. You’re going to have way more success than I ever will. You’re the next one that everyone’s going to look for to score the goals, to be the person to bring everyone a World Cup or an Olympic gold medal.’” It was this prescient support, Morgan said, that allowed her to blossom into the player she was. 

It is not easy to pour into a younger player, especially one who’s gunning for your roster spot. Wambach said that when Morgan joined the USWNT, she noticed some older players felt threatened by her—a fair thing to feel, since job security was nothing more than a pipe dream for most of women’s pro soccer’s existence. But Wambach had been mentored by Mia Hamm, and she recognized that strengthening a lineage of athletes who test and nurture the next generation before ultimately handing the game over to them is necessary to keep a sport alive. Besides, Wambach’s mentorship wasn’t purely altruistic; Wambach said that Morgan was the first player she played with since Hamm who made her feel like “my life was a little bit easier on the field.” 

In the 2022 interview, Wambach asked Morgan who she is mentoring, like how Hamm mentored Wambach and Wambach mentored Morgan. Morgan discussed her relationship with Mal Swanson, a player who has become an icon and a leader in her own right. But I think that in a decade, when the current generation of USWNT and NWSL stars retire, more than just Swanson will cite Morgan as core to their growth as players and leaders. 

Fellow San Diego Wave players, like María Sánchez and the 16-year-old Melanie Barcenas, have expressed how much they looked up to Morgan before even playing with her. Jaedyn Shaw, the 19-year-old midfield menace, does too. In a Players’ Tribune video of Shaw and Morgan getting their nails done earlier this year, Morgan talked about Wambach’s mentorship. “We played the same position but I never felt like I was in competition with her because she just uplifted me and wanted me to break her records,” she told Shaw. “I think that confidence in me makes me want to pass that down also to players like you.” 

Part of creating a strong lineage is knowing when to step aside. This past year, Morgan was pushed out of the USWNT frontline by the likes of Swanson, Trinity Rodman, and Sophia Smith. Morgan didn’t even make the Olympic roster, and it was that group of young attackers that led the USWNT to gold, putting the version of the team that Morgan led for so many years one step further into the past. Call it cutthroat, call it beautiful.

But that past will never be too far away. If Morgan’s generation is defined by anything, other than its collection of trophies, it is the way they strengthened the chain that links generations of players. When Naomi Girma, a fellow Wave player and the presumed next captain of the USWNT, received the captain’s armband at the end of Morgan’s final game on Sunday, it was a reminder that any future successes for the NWSL and USWNT will always be Morgan’s successes, too.

Morgan inspired and mentored a generation of players who are better than any the U.S. has seen before. Now she gets to sit back (not that she will), sip her tea, and watch it flourish.