Lynn Williams was eight years old when her family moved to a pecan farm in Clovis, California, just outside of Fresno. Her parents hadn’t planned on becoming pecan farmers. Her mom was a seventh-grade physical education teacher and her dad worked in waste management. They had always considered themselves city people. But the move was necessitated by a family tragedy.
Williams’ uncle, Curtis Williams, was a standout football player at the University of Washington who was paralyzed below the neck by a helmet-to-helmet tackle in a game against Stanford in 2000. Her father, David, was determined to keep his brother at home rather than in a nursing facility, and that necessitated moving out to a larger plot of land. One which happened to be a pecan farm.
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Williams, now a starting forward for the U.S. women’s national team, still writes her uncle’s number 25 on her wrist before games to honor him, 19 years after he passed. Every time she suffers an injury, she thinks about him and reminds herself that it could have been worse, how lucky she is to continue to play a game she loves. But specific memories of her uncle are hazier.
“As an eight-year-old, I don’t think I knew what was going on,” Williams said. “I was obsessed with myself. I do remember that it was really hard on my family.”
The pecan farm itself played a major role in forming the person she is today, though. Whenever she wanted to buy something for herself — school clothes, or a new pair of cleats — Williams had to work extra hard for an increase to her allowance. Which is how she came to spend long hours mowing the lawn of their 10-acre property, or picking up sticks, or, most memorably, shelling pecans.
“We always husked them by hand,” Williams said. “We would have bags and bags, and my parents would say, ‘OK, it’s time to shell them.’ And it was always just like, ‘Oh, no, not again. It took me a long time to be able to enjoy a pecan. To this day, I’m still like, ‘Do I really want to eat that?’”
Those long hours husking shells at the kitchen table did, however, have the positive side effect of instilling an appreciation for hard work, an ability to enjoy the process as much as the end product.
“Things aren’t just going to come to you if you don’t work for them,” Williams said. “That’s kind of shaped how I go about things. And even if you work hard, sometimes it doesn’t pan out. You can either decide to keep working or crumble. They always said to get back up and keep pushing on. That’s what I had to do in order to get what I wanted.”
That’s a lesson that has served Williams well, given how long she’s had to toil in order to get to this point, on firm ground with the USWNT and on the cusp of achieving her wildest dreams.
Williams is a self-described “underdog,” someone who has been overlooked and counted out throughout her career, from college to the pros. That leaves a mark, even when statuses change.
“It’s always been like that,” said Williams, and she’s turned it into a point of pride, a kind of personal mantra. “It’s always been like, ‘My name is Lynn, and here I am, just trying to leave my mark on the sport.’”
Williams was lightly recruited coming out of high school. She wasn’t in the youth national team picture, which is the quickest way to get on the radar for scholarships. She wouldn’t earn her first national team cap at any level until the U-23s.
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Williams’ only offer was from Pepperdine University. That might have felt like a slight at the time, but she’d soon discover that there are worse things than going to college in Malibu, on seaside cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean. This has been a recurring theme throughout her career: setbacks that later come to seem like exactly what she needed, in retrospect.
Williams got to hone her craft on a beautiful campus, where she enjoyed being a student. She picked up a part-time job at Chipotle, which she concedes “ wasn’t the funnest job, but I did get free food which, as a college person, that was good enough for me.” And she soon discovered that when you have a special talent and you stick to it, the powers-that-be can find you.
Sam Mewis remembers the first time she saw Williams play, when the future close friends and roommates were collegiate competitors. Mewis was a lot of things that Williams was not: in the youth national team pipeline, a two-time Parade All-American in high school. Yet when her UCLA Bruins faced off against Pepperdine, she recognized a fellow baller.
“Her reputation preceded her, that she’s fast,” Mewis said. “As soon as I started playing with her and getting to know her, I realized that she’s so much more than fast. She’s a really well-rounded player: really smart, and her speed is just an added bonus.”
Mewis and Williams were both selected in the first round of the 2015 NWSL Draft by the Western New York Flash (Mewis at fourth overall and Williams sixth). And going to a struggling franchise proved to be another blessing in disguise.
The Flash struggled in their rookie season, finishing in seventh place out of nine, which inspired a coaching change and the arrival of Paul Riley, whom the players would later credit as a huge influence. His high-pressing style of play, which Williams describes as “organized chaos,” was a perfect match for her skill set, with her quickness and dogged relentlessness. The organizational ethos that Riley instilled was a good fit, too.
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“We had this group of girls and women who were hungry,” teammate Jessica McDonald said. “We came together as teammates, as the underdogs of the league. We bought into that. We bought into that underdog mentality.”
Western New York made a Cinderella run to the NWSL championship during Williams’ second season, and she played a starring role: scoring twice in extra time in the semis, and in the last minute of stoppage time in the final.
“It just shows that she has grit, even into the last seconds of games, when it truly helps,” McDonald said. “Her mental competitiveness is out of this world.”
The whole experience left a lasting impression on all of them, and helped birth a winning culture that carried over when the franchise relocated to North Carolina that next offseason. Now the Courage, they have since won two more NWSL championships, plus three consecutive shields as regular-season champs.
“Spiritual is the wrong word, but our bond that we formed at Western New York — when our first year was kind of a struggle, when we learned a lot but didn’t have that much success, and then that next year when we ended up winning the league — it really taught us all a lot,” Mewis said. “It taught us the importance of team chemistry, and of sticking with something even when it’s hard.”
In another fortuitous twist of fate, the skills Williams honed with the Flash turned out to be exactly what USWNT head coach Vlatko Andonovski was looking for when he took over in 2019. The formation isn’t the same as what Riley runs in North Carolina, and it’s obviously a different overall talent level, but the general ethos is the same: high intensity, constant pressure, an emphasis on forcing opponents’ mistakes.
“Her athleticism is always welcome on this team, and on any team,” Andonovski said of Williams. “She has an ability to penetrate on the side, and break teams down, especially on this team playing as a wide forward. … One other thing that is very important for us that Lynn brings to this team is her tenacity out of possession, and her ability to close opponents down with extreme pressure on defenders. That creates turnovers that we are able to capitalize on.”
Williams started in each of the U.S.’s two recent friendlies against Colombia, netting her 10th international goal in the second match. But it was her performance in the team’s rematch last fall against 2019 World Cup final opponent the Netherlands that provided a more complete picture of what she brings to the squad.
Of the six turnovers Williams forced, five were in the Netherlands’ half, the highest percentage of any U.S. starter other than midfielder Rose Lavelle, according to Wyscout. Williams had seven touches in the opponents’ box, the most of anybody in the match. She also had the highest expected goal total, and she was so consistently pressing high up the field that she was almost level with forward Christen Press.
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Williams is painfully aware of how difficult it can be to differentiate herself from her lauded peers, of the level of the competition she needs to meet and surpass in order to make this year’s Olympic team. A graphic shown during one of the Colombia broadcasts was almost laughable, so loaded is this team’s attacking front: Megan Rapinoe, Tobin Heath, Christen Press, Carli Lloyd, Alex Morgan, Catarina Macario, Mal Pugh, Sophia Smith. And Lynn Williams, right there in the mix.
“I still feel like an underdog,” Williams said. “I still feel like I’m having to prove myself every game and in every training. For me, the second I feel like I’m comfortable, I’m not doing the right thing.”
Here she took a brief pause.
“I was getting the same opportunities under Jill (Ellis) and ended up getting cut,” Williams said. “I still carry that with me here and now.”
Missing out on the 2019 World Cup was “heart shattering” for her, she says, especially because she thought that she was on track.
“When I didn’t make it, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m failing in front of the world. What is happening?’ All of these crazy, depressing thoughts,” Williams said. “I got the perspective that, ‘OK, Lynn, you have to get back to work. At the end of the day, you’re more than just a soccer player. You have a beautiful family and friends who care about you. If this is something you want to continue to do, you have to love the journey that you’re on.’”
Williams watched every game of that World Cup. She says she was genuinely happy for all of her close friends as they won their second consecutive title, and it does sound like she means it. She leaned on her friends, family and boyfriend, reminding herself how lucky she was to have that support system. She recommitted herself to being the very best player she could be as the Courage played on, falling back on that we’ll-show-them mentality that Riley has fostered and that never felt more timely.
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She was heartened by the triumphs of some of her friends and teammates who were also forced to take a roundabout way onto that winners’ podium.
“I look up to Crystal (Dunn) — which is kind of weird to say, because she’s one of my best friends — and obviously our situations are a little bit different, but she didn’t make the World Cup team in 2015 and made the Olympic team in 2016,” Williams said. “I’m trying to do the same, so my thinking is that if Crystal could fight back, I’m going to try to fight back, as well. You don’t just accept your fate, you make your own.”
Those who have charted Williams’ career from the beginning are impressed with all of the little nuances she’s added to her game. After every offseason, she comes back with some new wrinkle: a new move to free herself up in the box, a different point of emphasis.
“One of my first thoughts about her, and I’ll never forget this, is that with her speed, and with the kind of coach Paul is, I knew he was going to create a beast,” McDonald said. “I kinda knew right off the bat, at Western New York, that she had a bright, bright future ahead of her with the national team.”
With Riley’s help, Williams has turned her best attribute into a finely honed weapon, learning exactly when to use her speed to open up opposing defenses.
“That has helped evolve her game a whole lot,” McDonald said, “her runs, and her work ethic overall.”
Those who know her well say Williams’ most notable growth has come off the field, though.
“Lynn has really become one of the leaders in discussing social justice, and taking action,” Mewis said. “I’m just so proud of her. She’s so smart, and so willing to tell us about her experience. She’s just been so open, about sharing but also about listening. In what can be a kind of difficult conversation to have, Lynn has really shown up. She’s someone who everybody trusts, and who everybody wants to follow. I think that just demonstrates her character, and says a lot about who she is.”
Sometime early last summer, when protests were happening all over the nation in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, Williams and Mewis looked at each other and realized how little they actually knew about one another. They’d been roommates for close to four years at that point, spending long sessions binge watching reality TV on the couch after training, but much about their friendship was superficial.
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“I love Sam, and we’ve gotten very close, but besides little things about our backgrounds, we never really dove in,” Williams said. “It was just like, ‘I like you as a human.’ I think her hearing that, yeah, I have been racially profiled before. Me and my boyfriend have been followed by the police. In soccer, I have been put into a box: that I’m just speed, that’s it. I think that was eye opening (for her), because we were so close. … I was so grateful that she was so willing to just ask the questions and not feel uncomfortable. She was just like, ‘I don’t know if this is offensive.’ Just ask the questions. I think that brought us together more, and connected our friendship on a deeper level.”
Williams became a much more vocal advocate for social justice publicly, as well, and joined the Black Women’s Player Collective.
“For the longest time, I was somebody who was like, ‘Don’t rock the boat,’” Williams said. “‘Don’t put your political views out there. You’re going to lose fans, X, Y and Z.’ This past summer, it was just so apparent, and a time in history when you couldn’t look away. At the beginning of my career, I was just so focused on soccer that I couldn’t focus on anything else. Now that I’m a bit older, I kept looking at it and thought to myself, ‘Lynn, what do you want to be known for? Is it just a soccer player, or is it somebody who is there to fight for equality?’ I’ve always been somebody who, when I think something is wrong, I stand up and say something. At that moment, I wasn’t afraid of losing fans. It was the right thing to do.”
Her confidence in herself and in the power of her voice has grown as she’s become more secure in her standing within the sport. Williams might never feel entirely comfortable with her national team status, but she has a guaranteed contract with the Courage that runs through 2023.
That contract was essentially the first of its kind, making Williams something of a NWSL player empowerment pioneer. Up until recently, NWSL players who were also national teamers had their deals subsidized by the U.S. Soccer Federation. That allowed USWNT stars to make more than their peers, but it also meant that they were forever susceptible to dropping off that payroll if they fell out of favor, like Williams did with Ellis. Now, the league is allowing its clubs greater autonomy to lock up its important players, and the federation is phasing out that previous setup.
“Mentally, having stability and knowing where your money is coming from is such a weight off your shoulders,” Williams said.
Williams, who joked that she is now basically “Courage ‘til I die,” was also thrilled with the announcement on Thursday morning that tennis star Naomi Osaka is becoming a part-owner of North Carolina.
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“Bringing in somebody like Naomi, who is not just a woman, but a woman of color, it’s so encouraging,” Williams said. “It’s like, yeah, now I’m fighting for somebody who looks like me. You can make it to the top. You can be an investor of a professional team. The world is your oyster. For the longest time, I think people felt like there was a cap.”
At the first U.S. camp Williams attended in 2016, she had to catch herself from becoming too starstruck as her new teammates walked into the meeting room one by one. That’s Christen Press. There’s Tobin Heath. Oh, wow, that’s Carli Lloyd.
“I try to remind myself that my parents have always taught me that people are people,” Williams said. “Some people are gifted with different skill sets, but people are people.”
Still, even now, it doesn’t always feel like she totally belongs.
“It kind of goes day by day, if we’re completely honest,” Williams said. “The more you get to know them and make them humans instead of idols, that, ‘oh, I can do this, and I have been playing on the same field as them for a while.’ Part of me is, ‘I am their peer.’ The other part of me still has this underdog mentality, where I’m always trying to prove myself. So I think that I can be that, but I do still have work to do.”
Others are less modest on her behalf.
“I do think within the past couple of years, she’s really opened people’s eyes,” McDonald said, “to show people what she’s been doing — not what she does, or has done — what she’s been doing. She’s gotten better and better, by like a huge margin, every single year, but she’s always been a very dominant player on the field. I think people are just finally seeing who Lynn Williams truly is.”
Adds Mewis: “I feel like being on the national team, you really just have to keep going. I know that Lynn is someone who, because of her measured approach, adversity is not going to stop her, and success isn’t going to deter her. She’s someone who’s just going to keep putting one foot in front of the other, keep fighting and keep demonstrating her value to the team.”
That last part goes back to those lessons learned early on at the farm in Clovis, husking pecans. Just keep at it, day by day, and try your best to enjoy the journey along the way.
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“I play soccer because I love soccer, and if I tick off some of my dreams along the way, that’s amazing,” Williams said. “But at the end of the day, I play it because I love the game. If I get to the Olympics, that’s obviously been a dream of mine from when I was a little girl, and I’ll be ecstatic. But I also recognize that I have been in this situation before, and if I don’t make it, my life will go on.”
(Photo: Brad Smith/ISI Photos)
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