Each practice is supposed to start with a joke. They don't warm up until the joke is over. In the first training session of 2021, the team stood together on the practice field and wondered who would tell the first game. To everyone's surprise, the new defender said he had one.
She wants to know where the people with one hand go to shop. The team is waiting for it and that's when the joke comes in. There is a second-hand store.
The team was cracked up by the fact that Carson has missing hands and forearms.
The elephant in the room was the captain's point of view. Is it possible to approach someone with one arm? Are you talking to them directly about it? Are you going to ignore it? You have no idea what the rules are. She broke ice with everyone at the same time. She is really cool. She made people feel good about her arm. She is summed up by that. She doesn't want her to be comfortable.
When her friends heard that she was the first person with a limb difference to play for the U.S. women's national team, they were confused. They were talking about someone else. They have never considered her that way.
She is able to joke about her arm and post pictures on her social media accounts. She is a featured speaker at the Makers Conference, a leadership event that brings together hundreds of the most powerful women in the world, and she is on a stage sharing her experience with a wide audience. There was no discussion about her arm for a long time. She didn't want that single detail to define her. She wanted to be known as the soccer player, not as the girl with one arm.
She is also comfortable being more than that.
The start is in South Carolina. The Picketts made $19,000 a year as P.E. teachers in their 20s. Mike was the football coach at the high school. Think of Friday Night Lights. Mike was a soccer player, but he was also a P.E. teacher and the bus driver. He was the kickers' coach.
He says that he was the fifteenth assistant. Even though he was the kickers coach, he still watched game film with the rest of the staff until 2 a.m. They waited at Red Lobster on the weekends to get ready for the baby.
They did not do the final ones. Treasure gave birth to a baby girl. The nurse wrapped her in a blanket and asked if she could see her father.
"The nurse said, 'We've got an issue,' and my heart dropped to my feet," says Mike, his voice breaking. You don't want to hear about an issue. The new dad was shown the blanket by the nurse, who had lost her hand and forearm. When part of the birthing sac breaks off, it's calledamniotic band syndrome. Mike says that it's like a floating rubber band that wraps around a body part.
It is your baby." Mike said you love her no matter what. He was afraid of what this would mean for his daughter. He and Treasure were in the hospital. Mike says it was full steam ahead after that. Mike went to school with his arm tied behind his back because he wanted to know what the world would be like for his daughter. The P.E. teacher realized he couldn't do basketball demos.
Mike spent the day feeling sorry for himself. He didn't want Carson to feel sorry for herself or limited, that's what he wanted. She would have no chance if we coddled her. "Can't" and "quit" are the worst four-letter words you can say.
The Picketts brought their son to the sideline of the basketball court and the football field. Treasure said that everyone would love on her. The Boosters wanted to do everything they could to help the girl. She was the youngest patient in the hospital to receive a limb.
She became a special project for the doctors because they put toys around the room to lure her. "She would crawl two steps, it would slow her down, then she would take it off, chuck it, and take off crawling on her nub with blinding speed around the room." It was repeatedly. The doctors were both happy.
Doctors would make her three more artificial limbs. She didn't wear any of them. One of the things myo-electric does is read signals from the brain when the brain thinks about picking something up. With that hand, she shattered a glass and pinched her dad.
A claw was one of the Prosthetics. Her dad says that she didn't wear that one. There were veins in the last one she got. Mike says she probably wore it for a short time. She was happy with what she was given.
Her "nub" didn't feel to her like an impediment. She played every sport from the beginning. She made it to the final in tennis. After a tennis pro did a one-on-one lesson with her, he came over to her parents and said that she had a one-handed backhand.
Her mom, a former collegiate basketball player who made it to a final four, coached her in basketball and she was able to shoot with her right hand. She was also in the water. Her parents were frightened by that one the most. She asked her friends to do it and they did it. Mike worried if she couldn't stay above water. The first race was a freestyle relay. They were nervous for the eight-year-old who had four legs. Her team won when she flew through the water and closed the gap. Mike says that it was emotional. It was the first day after the hospital.
She started playing soccer when she was six years old, a hundred yards from her house in Florida. She played with her friends and the rest were boys.
It was enjoyable.
The girls were better than the boys at practice. The boys and girls would slide tackle each other. The best friends tried out for the boys' club team because the girls' program was weak. The girls played well during the small-sided games and the scrimmages, and both the daughters and their fathers were certain they were crushing it. The 70 kids that tried out were in the top 16.
The coaches made a decision at the end of the tryout. They called your name and you stood with your team. All of us were on different teams. I was a member of the team. I walked from the circle. I felt like I wasn't good at soccer because I had done everything I could.
.@Cars_Pickett16 is the FIRST player with a limb difference to play in a USWNT game! #ThatsaW pic.twitter.com/wjlnubWfgc
— ESPN (@espn) June 29, 2022
The coaching director was told to put the girls on the C team and the dads would coach them for free. The Irish coach turned down the offer. He stated that girls should not be playing with boys. Mr. Pickett asked if he wanted to repeat that.
Even though you could see the lights from the Picketts' yard, the four friends decided to commute to a new club. For the next seven years, they made the 50-minute drive, but they were inseparable: there were songs to be sung, homework to be done, meals to be shared, and secret to be shared. They grew up in the same area. They shared the same dreams, which can be intense when you're constantly trying out for ODP teams, returning from a tryout together on a five-hour car ride, when two of you didn't make it.
Mike says that whoever didn't make it would cry. The first person to be called into a youth national team was Hayley Flynn. All of my friends would go to camp except for me.
Mr. Pickett is fond of motivational quotes. "Never let someone turn your sky into a ceiling" is one of the things that Carson likes the most. A year ago, her dad stuck a giant yellow piece of paper in the center of her mirror that said, "You're either getting by or you're getting better." She couldn't see her teeth or her hair. She admits to sometimes wanting to rip it down. He put one up to the mirror in his room. His wife, who was a high school principal at the time, said this. It's not possible to be here.
Every day after practice, he hit 200 crosses and free kicks. She and her dad invented a ball-heading contraption, which they screwed eye hooks into one of those floating basketball hoops designed for a pool, and tied balls from both sides of the apparatus.
Mr. Pickett was no longer a football coach, but the film-watching from his football days continued, even though he was no longer a coach. The coach's daughter in "Remember the Titans" was always looking over her father's shoulder. She was watching a lot of game film.
He scored 150 goals and had 152 assists in high school. Her best guy friends were not soccer players but came to watch her play. They used to say "Nice job kicking a goal!" when they text her. Joseph remembers a game in which he whistled for a hand ball. The guys were watching from the stands as Carson gestured angrily to her left arm as she talked to the referee. The guys in the stands got a good laugh when the coach shouted from the sideline.
Joseph says that the family of Michael Jordan is the most competitive he has ever met. You will be challenged to basketball at lunch break by her father. He is more of a silent killer.
She got her first call-up to a U.S. national team camp when she was 17 years old. She would get a scholarship to the school. The University of Virginia was chosen by Kailie and Annie. The kids who ate orange slices together at U 6 soccer had fulfilled a dream they had sketched out in their back seats.
The Florida State University has more than 30,000 students. It's a far cry from when he was a kid at a private school where everyone knew each other. There were 52 kids in her graduating class. Her arm wasn't something.
Back in kindergarten, there were some questions. Kids are direct. They would ask if you had an arm. I would say, "I was born that way." That was the end of it. Most of the time, no one noticed her arm. She was more self-conscious about the morning announcements when they called out the statistics from the after-school activities. She begged her dad not to send in her statistics. As she was introducing herself to a new world of people and a new team in college, she wore hoodies with long sleeves. She didn't want her arm to make a difference.
"I tried to hide my arm so that they wouldn't see it before they met me," says Carson. I wasn't really excited about it, but I wasn't ashamed of it either. I was not trying to give it away.
The 18-year-old was able to defend because she wanted to prove herself on the field. She was a master of the set piece because of the hours she spent practicing. She had extraordinary vision and understanding because she pored over game film with her father. She can attack and send in a ball that is accurate.
When the team made it to the College Cup, she was excited to be one of the players to speak to the media. All they wanted to know about the game was what it was like to play with one arm.
Treasure said that she could reach many people with her story. You have the ability to inspire others. The beginning of the shift in perspective was marked by this.
The strange headed goal by Carson in his junior year helped FSU win the Atlantic Coast Conference championship. FSU won the national title for the first time. They didn't score in the tournament. There wasn't a single goal allowed. She led the team in assists with 14 and was the leader of the defense.
He was selected fourth in the NWSL college draft. She had started her professional career, but it was a bit different than she had imagined. She was paid $12,500 for her work.
The tiny private school kid who went to college an easy drive away was now heading to the other side of the country Carson was very nervous when he got on the plane. She was not familiar with a soul. She lived 25 minutes away from town and didn't see her teammates a lot. Megan Rapinoe, Kim Little, and Jess Fishlock were her footballing giants. It's time to join the big league.
None of the rookies got cut. Pinoe had this way of grinning at you conspiratorially, making you feel welcome and at ease, joking with you until the nerves went away. Pinoe was the reason I was alright. Pinoe is fond of throw-ins, according to Carson.
Pinoe was like, "great, more throw-ins for me", since Carson hasn't taken throw-ins since she was called for an illegal throw. She didn't tell anyone that the Reign played on old, hard turf and that she had a foot injury. She didn't think much of it. She does things that way.
She returned to Florida after two years in Seattle to play for the Pride. The lost year is when her team did not play in the NWSL Challenge Cup, a tournament designed to replace the regular season for 2020.
She was traded to the North Carolina Courage next season. She is a better all-around player than I thought, according to her coach. She is very compatible with us. She is a demon. I have never seen anyone train like her, and I think that's why she's so confident.
The entire league was thrown into turmoil in September when two former players accused Riley of sexual harassment and coerced them. The allegations were published the same day as Riley's firing. When asked about what it was like to have the coach who championed her fired for such dismaying allegations, she declined to comment, but she did say that it wasn't just Riley who believed in her and that the team did as well.
She says the club thought she could be good enough. She had found a place with the Courage. The league continued forward with Riley out of the picture.
Pickett was a finalist for the defender of the year award. The Courage saw a mass exodus of stars at the beginning of the 21st century. Pickett was named to the Challenge Cup All-Tournament team. On the group chat with her high school guys, Joseph said that she didn't need to know much about soccer to know that it was good.
Debinha gets her goal!
She rounds the keeper and calmly finishes for 10th of the season. 💫 pic.twitter.com/EthW8Jm3mj
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