Opinion: The other Bay Area champs--women's pro soccer FC Gold Pride --can't be allowed to fold
- November 10, 2010
Like most people in the Bay Area, I was swept up in the emotion of the San Francisco Giants' World Series victory. But my emotion was bittersweet because the same day the Giants were clinching their first title in their 52 years in the Bay Area, the Mercury News reported that another local team, FC Gold Pride of the fledgling Women's Professional Soccer league, might fold after only two seasons.
The Pride, like the Giants, are champions. This year, we went from worst to first and won the WPS title while leading the league in virtually every statistical category. FC Gold Pride is packed with talent, including Women's World Cup and Olympic gold medal winners like Tiffeny Milbrett; Stanford University standouts Kelley O'Hara, Ali Riley, Nicole Barnhart and Rachel Buehler; as well as Marta, the Brazilian phenomenon who has won FIFA's World Player of the Year award four years running. One local soccer scribe has suggested that "the 2010 edition of FC Gold Pride was the best women's club team of all time."
Sadly, the Pride are running out of time unless an eleventh-hour investor surfaces. Monday is the deadline for making a capital call to WPS, and the current ownership is unprepared to make it. If the capital call is not made, the Pride will cease to exist.
Our players are professional athletes of the very highest echelon -- rare and accessible role models, especially for girls. From our home field at Cal State East Bay in Hayward, FC Gold
Pride players have participated in more than 230 community events spanning the entire Bay Area in the past two years. They represent the possibility that a little girl can grow up to be a professional athlete, but their significance goes beyond athletics.
As one father once wrote to me, "This isn't about turning all these girls into pros. We all know the odds of that. It is about getting them to open their eyes to the possibility of it or the opportunities that hard work and dedication can present. As we know, in many countries of the world, girls aren't even allowed to play (soccer). While I am proud that my country isn't one of those, I am saddened by (the) news which seems to suggest that as a whole we still don't see the importance of supporting women's pro sports."
The Pride are a beacon for girls and women everywhere. The team's demise would be a great setback, not only for professional sports in the Bay Area but for the cause of gender equality across the country and around the globe. My fervent hope is that the progressive and entrepreneurial spirit of the Bay Area survives sufficiently to save the Pride.
Although time is short, the cost of saving the Pride is relatively small. A nearly full stadium of 5,000 fans next season would ensure its viability and show potential investors that the Bay Area embraces women's professional sports. Season tickets start at only $120, well within the budget of most Bay Area households and less than a night at the movies on a per-game basis.
If you share the spirit, I urge you to make a deposit on a season ticket package; it is fully refundable if the team does not play in 2011-- that's our commitment to the fans who believe in us. Together, we can ensure that FC Gold Pride's true value is in the possibilities it creates for generations of girls and the women they become.
ILISA KESSLER is general manager of the 2010 Womens Professional Soccer champions FC Gold Pride of Bay Area Women's Professional Soccer. She wrote this article for this newspaper.
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