Abby Wambach commencement speech to Barnards Class of 2018

Abby Wambach commencement speech to Barnards Class of 2018Abby Wambach commencement speech to Barnards Class of 2018Below is the transcript (and video) of soccer star Abby Wambachs commencement speech to Barnards Class of 2018Greetings to President Beilock, Provost, Dean, Barnard faculty, trustees, and honorees Katzu sichbeiine Johnson, Anna Quindlen, and Rhea Suh. And to each of the 619 badass women of the Barnard graduating class of 2018 Congratulations, you guys, congratulationsDoesnt it feel like the second you figure anything out in life, it ends and youre forced to start all over again? Experts call ansicht times of life, transitions. I call them terrifying. I went through a terrifying transition recently when I retired from soccer.The world tries to distract us from our fear during these transitions by creating fancy ceremonies for us. This is your fancy ceremony. Mine welches the ESPYs, a nationally televised sports award show. I had to get dressed up for that, just like you got dressed up for this. But they sent me a really expensive fancy stylist. It doesnt look like you guys got one. Sorry about that.So it went like this ESPN called and told me they were going to honor me with their inaugural icon award. I was humbled, of course, to be regarded as an icon. Did I mention that Im an icon?I received my award along with two other incredible athletes basketballs Kobe Bryant and footballs Peyton Manning. We all stood on stage together and watched the highlights of our careers with the cameras rolling and the fans cheering, and I looked around and had a moment of awe. I felt so grateful to be there, included in the company of Kobe and Peyton. I had a momentary feeling of having arrived - like we women had finally made it.Then the applause ended and it was time for the three of us to exit stage left. And as I watched those men walk off the stage, it dawned on me that the three of us were stepping into very different futures.Each of us, Kobe, Peyton and I - we made the same sacrifices, we shed the same amount of blood sweat and tears, wed left it all on the field for decades with the same ferocity, talent and commitment. But our retirements wouldnt be the same at all. Because Kobe and Peyton walked away from their careers with something I didnt have enormous bank accounts. Because of that, they had something else I didnt have freedom. Their hustling days were over, and mine were just beginning.Later that night, back in my hotel room, I laid in bed and thought this isnt just about me, and this isnt just about soccer. We talk a lot about the pay gap. We talk about how, overall, U.S. women earn 80 cents for every dollar paid to men. Black women in America earn 63 cents, while Latinas earn 54 cents, for every dollar paid to white men. What we need to talk about more is the aggregate and compounding effects of the pay gap on womens lives. Over time, the pay gap means women are able to invest less and save less, so they have to work longer. When we talk about what the pay gap costs us, lets be clear it costs us our very lives.And it hit me that Id spent most of my time during my career the same way Id spent my time on that ESPYs stage. Just feeling grateful. Grateful to be one of the only women to have a seat at the table. I was so grateful to receive any respect at all for myself that I often missed opportunities to demand equality for all of us. But as you know, women of Barnard, change is here. Women are learning that we can be grateful for what we have and also demand what we deserve.Itscommencement seasonFollow LaddersCommencement Addresses magazine on Flipboardto watch and read all of the most inspiring speeches from this year and years past.Like all little girls, I was taught to be grateful. I was taught to keep my head down, stay on the path, and get my job done. I was freaking Little Red Riding Hood. You know the fairy tale. Its just one iteration of the warning stories girls are told the world over. Little R ed Riding Hood heads off through the woods and is given strict instructions Stay on the path. Dont talk to anybody. Keep your head down hidden underneath your Handmaids Tale cape.And she doesat first. But then she dares to get a little curious and she ventures off the path. Thats, of course, when she encounters the big bad wolf and all hell breaks loose. The message is clear Dont be curious, dont make trouble, dont say too much or bad things will happen. I stayed on the path out of fear- not of being eaten by a wolf- but of being cut, being benched, losing my paycheck. If I could go back and tell my younger self one thing it would be this Abby, You were never Little Red Riding Hood, you were always the wolf.So when I was entrusted with the honor of speaking here today, I decided that the most important thing for me to say to you, is this Barnard women, class of 2018, we are the wolves.In 1995, around the year of your birth, wolves were re-introduced into Yellowstone National Park af ter being absent for 70 years. In those years, the number of deer had skyrocketed because they were unchallenged, alone at the top of the food chain. They grazed away and reduced the vegetation, so much that the riverbanks were eroding.Once the wolves arrived, they thinned out the deer through hunting. But more significantly, their presence changed the behavior of the deer. Wisely, the deer started avoiding the valleys and the vegetation in those places regenerated. Trees quintupled in just six years. Birds and beavers started moving in. The river dams the beavers built provided habitats for otters and ducks and fish. The animal ecosystem regenerated. But that wasnt all. The rivers actually changed as well. The plant regeneration stabilized the riverbanks so they stopped collapsing. The rivers steadied - all because of the wolves presence.See what happened here? The wolves - who were feared as a threat to the system - turned out to be its salvation. Barnard Women, are yall pickin g up what Im laying down here? Women are feared as a threat to our system - and we will also be our salvation.Our landscape is overrun with archaic ways of thinking about women, about people of color, about the other, about the rich and the poor, about the powerful and the powerless. And these ways of thinking are destroying us. We are the ones weve been waiting for. We will not Little Red Riding hood our way through life. We will unite our pack, storm the valley together and change the whole bloody system.Throughout my life, my pack has been my gruppe. Teams need a unifying structure, and the best way to create one collective heartbeat is to establish rules for your team to live by. It doesnt matter what specific page youre all on, just as long as youre all on the same one.Here are four rules Ive used to unite my pack and lead them to goldRule No. 1 Make failure your fuel.Heres something the best athletes understand, but seems like a harder concept for non-athletes to grasp. Non-a thletes dont know what to do with the gift of failure. So they hide it, pretend it never happened, reject it outright, and they end up wasting it.Listen Failure is not something to be ashamed of, its something to be powered by. Failure is the highest octane fuel your life can run on. You gotta learn to make failure your fuel.When I was on the youth national team, only dreaming of playing alongside Mia Hamm Yall know her? Good. I had the opportunity to visit the national teams lax room. The thing that struck me most wasnt my heroes grass stained cleats, or their names and numbers hanging above their lockers. It was a picture. It was a picture that someone had taped next to the door, so that it would be the last thing every player saw before she headed out to the training pitch. You might guess it was a picture of their last big win, or of them standing on a podium accepting gold medals. But it wasnt. It was a picture of their long time rival, the Norwegian national team celebrating after having just beaten the USA in the 1995 World Cup.In that locker room I learned that in order to become my very best - on the pitch and off - Id need to spend my life letting the feelings and lessons of failure transform into my power. Failure is fuel. Fuel is power.Women listen to me. We must embrace failure as our fuel instead of accepting it as our destruction. As Michelle Obamarecently said, I wish that girls could fail as well as men do and be OK. Because let me tell you watching men fail up, its frustrating. Its frustrating to see men blow it and win. And we hold ourselves to these crazy, crazy standards.hautwolf Pack Fail up, blow it and win.Rule No. 2 Lead from the bench.Imagine this Youve scored more goals than any human being on the planet - female or male. Youve co-captained and led Team USA in almost every category for the past decade. And you and your coach sit down and decide together that you wont be a anlasser in your last World Cup for Team USA. So, that suc ked.Youll feel benched sometimes, too. Youll be passed over for the promotion, taken off the project. You might even find yourself holding a baby instead of briefcase, watching your colleagues get ahead. Heres whats important. Youre allowed to be disappointed when it feels like lifes benched you. What you arent allowed to do is miss your opportunity to lead from the bench. During that last World Cup, my teammates told me that my presence, my support, my vocal and relentless belief in them from the bench, is what gave them the confidence they needed to win us that championship.If youre not a leader on the bench, then dont call yourself a leader on the field. Youre either a leader everywhere or nowhere. And by the way, the fiercest leading Ive ever seen has been done between mother and child. Parenting is no bench. It just might be the big game.Wolf Pack Wherever youre put, lead from there.Rule No. 3 Champion each other.During every 90-minute soccer match there are a few magical momen ts when the ball actually hits the back of the net and a goal is scored. When this happens, it means that everything has come together perfectly - the perfect pass, the perfectly timed run, every player in the right place at exactly the right time - all of this culminating in a moment in which one player scores that goal.What happens next on the field is what transforms a bunch of individual women into a team. Teammates from all over the field rush toward the goal scorer. It appears that were celebrating her, but what were really celebrating is every player, every coach, every practice, every sprint, every doubt and even every failure that this one single goal represents. You will not always be the goal scorer. And when you are not, you better be rushing toward her.Women must champion each other. This can be difficult for us. Women have been pitted against each other since the beginning of time, for that one seat at the table. Scarcity has been planted inside of us and among us. T his scarcity is not our fault, but it is our problem. And it is within our power to create abundance for women where scarcity used to live.As you go out into the world, amplify each others voices. Demand seats for women, people of color and all marginalized people at every table where decisions are made. Call out each others wins and, just like we do on the field, claim the success of one woman as a collective success for all women.Joy. Success. Power. These are not pies where a bigger slice for her means a smaller slice for you. These are infinite. In any revolution, the way to make something true starts with believing it is. Lets claim infinite joy, success, and power - together.Wolf Pack Her victory is your victory. Celebrate it.Fourth rule Demand the ball.When I was a teenager, I was lucky enough to play with one of my heroes, Michelle Akers. She needed a place to train since there was not yet a womens professional league. Michelle was tall like I am, built like Id be built and the most courageous soccer player Id ever seen play. She personified every one of my dreams.We were playing a small-sided scrimmage - five against five. We were 18 years old and she was Michelle Akers, a chiseled, 30-year-old powerhouse. For the first three quarters of the game, she was taking it easy on us, coaching us, teaching us about spacing, timing and the tactics of the game.But by the fourth quarter, she realized that because of all of this coaching, her team was losing by three goals. In that moment, a light switched on inside of her. She ran back to the goalkeeper, stood one yard away from her and screamed Give. Me. The. Effing. Ball.And the goalkeeper gave her the effing ball. And she took that ball and she dribbled through our entire effing team, and she scored. Now this game was winners keepers, so if you scored you got the ball back.So, as soon as Michelle scored, she ran back to her goalie, stood a yard away from her and screamed Give. Me. The.Ball.The keeper did. A nd again she dribbled though us and scored. And then she did it again. She took her team to victory. Michelle Akers knew what her team needed from her at every moment of the game. Dont forget, until the fourth quarter, leadership had required Michelle to help, support and teach, but eventually leadership called her to demand the ball.Wolf Pack At this moment in history, leadership is calling us to sayGive me the effing ball.Give me the effing job.Give me the same pay the guy next to me gets.Give me the promotion.Give me the microphone.Give me the Oval Office.Give me the respect Ive earned, and give it to my wolf pack too.In closing, I want to leave you with the most important thing I have learned since leaving soccer. When I retired, my sponsor, Gatorade, surprised me at a meeting with the plan for mysend off commercial. The message was this Forget Me. They nailed it. They knew I wanted my legacy to be ensuring the future success of the sport Id dedicated my life to. If my name were forgotten, that would mean that the women who came behind me were breaking records, winning championships and pushing the game to new heights. When I shot that commercial, I cried.A year later, I found myself coaching my 10-year-old daughters soccer team. Id coached them all the way to the championship. (humblebrag) One day I was warming up the team, doing a little shooting drill. I was telling them a story about when I retired. And one of those little girls looked up to me and said, So what did you retire from? And I looked down at her and said, Soccer. And she said, Oh. Who did you play for? And I said The United States of America. And she said Oh. Does that mean that you know Alex Morgan? Be careful what you wish for, Barnard. They forgot me.But thats OK. Being forgotten in my retirement didnt scare me. What scared me was losing the identity the game gave me. I defined myself as Abby Wambach, soccer player - the one who showed up and gave 100 percent to my team and fought along side my wolf pack to make a better future for the next generation. Without soccer, who would I be? A few months after retirement, I began creating my new life. I met Glennon and our three children, and I became a wife, a mother, a geschftliches miteinander owner and an activist. And you know who I am now? Im still the same Abby. I still show up and give 100 percent - now to my new pack, and I still fight every day to make a better future for the next generation.You see, soccer didnt make me who I was. I brought who I was to soccer. And I get to bring who I am wherever I go. And guess what? So do you. As you leave here today and every day going forward, dont just ask yourself, what do I want to do? Ask yourself, who do I want to be? Because the most important thing Ive learned is that what you do will never define you. Who you are always will. And who you are, Barnard women, are the wolves.Surrounding you today is your wolf pack. Look around. Go ahead, you can do it. Dont lose each other. Leave these sacred grounds united, storm the valleys together, and be our salvation.