LEESBURG, Va. — Once you reach the one-lane, gravel road, keep going, and hope another car doesn’t jump out from around the bend.
Go a little farther, and you’ll see the new temporary training facility for the Washington Spirit, which the National Women’s Soccer League team shares with MLS’ D.C. United. Inside, there is a large weight room and tables of catered food, plus freshly installed temporary walls to divide the warehouse into small offices.
The unusual space reflects a new era for the Spirit. After recent changes to just about everything — from a new coach and majority owner to a new color scheme dubbed “a rebrand in progress” — the club is in the midst of reimagining its identity.
“We’ve only scratched the surface in terms of what that culture really looks like,” midfielder Andi Sullivan tells The Equalizer.
This preseason feels different for the Washington Spirit. Michele Kang took over full ownership of the club in early 2022, a change that began this new era after a traumatic 2021 that saw the Spirit’s former coach banned from the league for abusive behavior and former owner forced to sell after players pressured him publicly. The club dealt with the fallout — including another controversial coaching change — in 2022. Now, players say, they are ready to move forward.
Kang is the change agent, and she is bringing a level of investment rarely seen in women’s soccer. Her $35 million purchase price of the Spirit in early 2022 set a new bar in the league as team valuations soar.
The Spirit’s training facility still isn’t ideal, but it’s a major improvement from the day-to-day uncertainty players faced in recent years.
“We were driving to the city and using the Audi Field locker room to change, then we’d drive to RFK,” Spirit goalkeeper Aubrey Kingsbury said. “Basically, we were homeless for a full year. We weren’t here. So, we would drive, but we lived out here, so we would drive in the city, like 45 minutes to an hour, change, and then drive another 20 to the field, get all sweaty and gross, drive back, shower, change, then come home, and it was just exhausting. So, again, it just made it really hard to do the things that, you know, we have energy for, and that we enjoy, so it was kind of just a lot of distractions outside the actual game.”
Another area where improvements are clear is medical attention. Players say the support they receive from staff is unprecedented in their NWSL careers.
Dawn Scott, the former head of the U.S. women’s national team’s sports science department, joined the club in November and brought with her a philosophy of women-specific training. Scott has brought in a diverse group of three athletic trainers and two physical therapists from different sports and countries, with other spots still open until they find the right candidate. That level of department-specific investment sets is unheard of in the NWSL.
Kingsbury credits Kang for investing in the resources to bring in industry-best hires. As a result, this preseason is more enjoyable, without the usual extra burdens like having to be proactive in organizing her own treatment.
“It’s just really empowering to feel like you’re getting individualized attention,” Kingsbury said.
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Kingsbury has also been impressed by Kang’s presence among the team. She said the owner has taken video calls with players that the team wants to recruit. She also invited everyone to her home for a dinner party during preseason training in Florida. This year, the team spent four weeks in the Sunshine State, about twice as long as in previous years.
Head coach Mark Parsons is back with the Spirit after leading the team from mid-2013 tohrough 2015. “I didn’t know what I was doing in 2013 and each year I’ve been trying to grow and improve,” Parsons said in a preseason press conference.
A significant difference from then to now is Parsons’ strategy: while the team has yet to firm up its identity, it is holding itself to higher standards, subsequently trying to raise the bar for women’s soccer, Parsons said. It is a much different landscape than the early years in the suburbs at the cozy confines of the Maryland SoccerPlex.
“I think we’re gonna hit levels that we haven’t even seen from ourselves yet,” Sullivan said. “There’s just going to be an intensity and an energy and a relentlessness that we’ve been practicing, but then to see that for 90 minutes in a full stadium and that’s loud, it’s going to bring out this extra edge to us.”
After a remarkable late-season run in 2021 that led to winning the NWSL Championship, the Spirit struggled in 2022. The team finished with a 3-10-9 record, the second-worst in the league.
A number of challenges off the pitch also plagued the team. In August, the team fired head coach Kris Ward, who in January was indefinitely banned from working with the NWSL for his alleged vebally abusive behavior. Ward had replaced Richie Burke, who was fired in fall 2021 after an investigation of abuse and harassment.
That past shapes the present, but it is also something players are ready to move beyond, if by no other way than focusing on what is in front of them. Kingsbury said the club is trying to emerge as global leader for players, staff, and coaches. She said the feeling between players and the new coaching staff is collaborative. There is patience and opportunities to make mistakes without feeling embarrassed or ashamed.
“They’ll point it out,” Kingsbury said, but “it’s not like a personal attack. It’s more of a, ‘in this position, we’ll do this instead.’”
The beginning of March brought a number of firsts for the club. The Spirit unveiled new black-and-white branding at a season kick-off event with media and season ticket holders. That was a tangible sign of a new era, although the black and white is likely temporary. The following day, the club announced the best single-day merchandise sales in its history. On March 3, Chloe Ricketts became the youngest player to sign an NWSL contract when the 15-year-old agreed to a three-year deal with the Spirit.
Sullivan said she thinks the offseason changes will pay off in the short-term, but especially in the long-term. She said she’s excited about the investments in the team, but feels an added responsibility to succeed.
“I also really want to take ownership of it to show how effective it can be, so that other people are like, ‘Oh crap, this is what we need to be doing, and this is the level of attention that we need to be putting into our athletes,’” Sullivan said.
The NWSL has seen more investment in recent years. Kang paid $35 million for full ownership of the team in early 2022. The league’s highest-valued team, Angel City FC, is worth over $100 million, sources previously told The Equalizer. The Kansas City Current recently broke ground on the first stadium built specifically for an NWSL team.
Kingsbury spent her early days in the league living with a host family as teams tried to save money, but new Spirit players now live in fully furnished apartments. The Spirit are no longer playing any games at the 5,000-seat Segra Field in Leesburg, Virginia, where metal trailers for locker rooms and a turf field were among the complaints from home and visiting players alike. All games are now at Audi Field in Washington, D.C., a soccer-specific stadium that opened in 2018.
“When I first came into the league, I felt like, ‘Oh, this is not what I expected it to be,’ and I think I kind of dreamed of it being the way that it is now,” Sullivan said. “It was so far away that I almost didn’t think it would be possible, or possible in my playing career, so to be here now is really exciting.”
Both Sullivan and Kingsbury are looking forward to getting back to Audi Field for their home opener against OL Reign on March 26. Kingsbury said that some of the best nights of her life were the two sellout crowds in the stadium in 2019, and she hopes the investments made this offseason can propel the team to more sustainable success, even becoming a dynasty.
“We feel like we’re a part of something big and something special,” Kingsbury said. “This is going to change the game for future generations.”
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