The influence of WPS on female youth players?

By Karen Ruberg:

I believe strongly in the need to have female role models involved in the game of soccer, whether they are girls playing at the next level or female coaches who have played the game at a competitive level. There are plenty of outstanding men who coach and who are involved in the women’s game, but there is something to be said for female soccer players to be able to see another female soccer player who is playing at the next level or to have a female coach who knows the game. Just like young boys, young girls benefit from seeing someone of the same gender excel in their sport; it helps to inspire and motivate young athletes across the board.

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The professional soccer program for Women’s soccer (WPS) has provided rising soccer stars with a source of role models, in that they can see real opportunities for women to play soccer beyond their years as students. While this is true, the reality is that those opportunities to play soccer professionally are only available to the most elite women in the game. In addition to that fact, the majority of girls who play soccer in high school do not go on to compete at the intercollegiate level. Knowing this, it seems that the WPS is not going to influence young girls much, if at all, in terms of making a direct correlation to their love of soccer with the possibility that one day they could play at either the college or professional level.

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The other sad fact is that the WPS is not in the mainstream media limelight. Men’s professional sports dominate the television and the newspapers, making it easy to track their progress throughout the season. To follow women’s pro sports proves more challenging, requiring a concerted effort in terms of reading game highlights or following one’s favorite team. The recent NCAA Final Four Championship of Basketball illuminates the disparity between men’s and women’s athletics. Most of the media and public attention was focused on the men’s games. There are myriad reasons for the glaring differences, but the fact remains that women’s professional sports do not get much attention.

While it is true that only a small percentage of female athletes successfully pursue the opportunity to compete in college or in the WPS, there is still tremendous value in the basic fact that those levels even exist. Young girls might not even make the connection to their love of soccer to watching a player like Abby Wambach make an amazing play for the Washington Freedom, but the fact that those teams are “out there” must, on a certain level, make their progression as soccer players at least a bit more exciting.

In a recent conversation with former Washington Freedom player Carrie, I asked her what kind of role models she remembers as a young soccer player growing up in Roanoke, Virginia. She commented, “There was not much girls soccer in Roanoke when I was growing up. I was part of the first all girls teams in the area so the girls older than me all played on boys’ teams. I vividly remember playing soccer in the basement with my younger brother and a neighborhood friend who was a boy. They chose to be Pele and Tatu, and I was Liz Wedemeyer, the best girl in Roanoke that played with the boys. She was the only female soccer player I knew. Early on, I wanted to be like her.”

The main point of Carrie’s comment still rings true for young soccer players today. While the professional league exists today and might in fact help young girls to see that they can pursue post-collegiate soccer, the bottom line is that it’s all about exposure. Young girls can only be influenced by what they are seeing and what is in their daily environment. If they don’t see the WPS in the newspaper, on the television, or in their community, then the influence will be minimal. To their credit, the WPS does seem to be making a concerted effort in this area, working hard to make connections with local soccer communities to increase their visibility.

Hopefully, over time the WPS will become more established and women’s soccer will gain more attention from sports fans across the country. As that happens, and with the continued efforts of the WPS at the grassroots level, perhaps more and more young girls will be able to look at the television and be able to picture themselves in the place of a player like Moore O’Keeffe or Wambach when they are their age.

About the author: Karen Ruberg is currently the Head Girls Varsity Coach at St. Stephen's & St. Agnes School.  Coach Ruberg has been involved in coaching girls from the recreation, travel, and on up to the intercollegiate levels.

• NSCAA National Diploma
• Former Asst. coach at University of Dayton and Wittenberg University
• Youth coach, Dayton, Ohio
• Varsity coach, girls soccer 13 years, Ohio (The Miami Valley School) and Virginia
• Currently Varsity Girls Soccer Coach at St. Stephen's & St. Agnes School, Alexandria, VA
• Played four years Varsity Soccer at Severna Park High School, '87
• Played four years at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, '91