Julie Foudy

Julie Foudy was a football (soccer) midfielder who was on the US National Team from 1987-2004, earning 274 caps. Foudy won gold medals at the 1996 and 2004 Olympics, and added a silver in 2000. She played at the FIFA World Cup four times, helping the USA win that title in 1991 and 1999, and claiming bronze medals in 1995 and 2003. She was the US National Team captain from 2000-04.

Foudy played in college at Stanford, where she studied pre-med, although she later elected not to attend medical school. She played professionally with the Sacramento Storm in 1993 and 1995-98, was with the San Diego Spirit from 2001-03, and played one season in Europe with Tyresö FF in Sweden. Foudy was elected to the US Soccer Hall of Fame in 2007.

Foudy has become well known since her playing career for her television appearances as an analyst on ESPN and NBC, but also for her political and social activism. In 1998, she received the FIFA Fair Play Award in recognition of her advocacy against child labor in sports equipment manufacturing. In 2002 Foudy was President of the Women’s Sports Foundation.

In 2006, she and her husband, Ian Sawyers, founded the Julie Foudy Sports Leadership Academy (JFSLA), which is an organization focused on sports and leadership for girls. In 2002, Foudy was named by United States Secretary of Education Rod Paige to the Commission on Opportunity in Athletics, a panel charged with reviewing the effects and implementation of the landmark 1972 Title IX legislation. Foudy and fellow commission member Donna de Varona refused to sign the commission’s report, feeling that it downplayed the persistence of gender-based discrimination in school athletics.