BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – Southern California was a natural destination for the NWSL’s first-ever media day, and not only for the benefits of gathering in a warm location in the winter. The history of women’s soccer runs through the area, most notably hosting the 1999 Women’s World Cup final, and it is such a hotbed for talent that 10 players in attendance hail from the region. As athletes and media members gathered in the reliably picturesque Beverly Hills, though, it was hard to ignore the realities of the last few weeks.
Wildfires have raged on in Southern California since Jan. 7, with nine fires blazing by the end of Friday and covering around 50,000 acres overall. Nearly 30 people have died and thousands of others have been displaced, some staying at the Beverly Hilton as the days counted down to the NWSL’s first media day at the hotel.
“Just being here the last couple of days, and this is true for our ecosystem, I don’t think you can walk around the city of Los Angeles and not meet someone who’s directly affected or one degree of separation,” commissioner Jessica Berman said.
That includes Angel City FC captain Ali Riley, who lost her childhood home in the Palisades fire and just days before her wedding. The blazes forced the U.S. women’s national team to move their annual January camp – which included about half of the players who took part in media day – from Carson, Calif. to Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. A similar move was not out of the question for the NWSL, either.
“We had daily meetings about the question of whether we should either postpone or relocate this event, which had been planned, of course, long before the fires,” Berman said. “We very thoughtfully made the decision based on where we understood the community to be and this was literally probably less than a week ago that we were going to proceed with the event.”
The NWSL’s choice to proceed as usual is one of several indicators that the recovery process is already underway in the Los Angeles area. Angel City officially began preseason training on Tuesday, while the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers and Clippers resumed play on Jan. 14 after postponements related to the fires. It is not merely a decision to avoid the hassles of rescheduling, though – there’s strength in choosing normal.
“Talking with Ali, she has just been trying to grapple with the fact that what she has known is gone now,” Alyssa Thompson, Riley’s teammate at Angel City, said. “I can’t really speak for her but we’re with her and I don’t really know what the team dynamic is now but I bet it’s nice, getting your mind out of it and just playing soccer.”
Naturally, a return to normal was not only empowering for players. Berman and other league officials had meetings with different stakeholders and partners during the week, some of whom were impacted by the wildfires but appreciated the opportunity to work.
“Part of the recovery effort of this city is going to be driving tourism and bringing people back to some semblance of normalcy and in the meetings we’ve had over the last two days that are adjacent to this particular event, that has been validated,” Berman said. “I was in a meeting yesterday, by way of example, with people at Amazon and people in the meeting had lost their homes and of course, the initial reaction is, ‘You don’t need to be here,’ and they’re like, ‘No, I need to be here. I need to re-engage in my life and start the healing process.'”
The Houston Dash’s Diana Ordonez, who was born in Riverside, Calif, said she was pleased the NWSL was dedicated to stick to its plans. Baked into a return to normalcy was the task at hand, and one that the league’s players are very passionate about – growing the league’s reach in a period of rapid growth for women’s sports.
“I think there was a question mark for all of us about whether or not we were going to come here and going to do this,” Ordonez said. “I’m glad that we were able to and it’s safe to be here. I think that shedding a light on the situation – the fact that we get to be here and to do this just shows us what a privilege it is, the life that we have where we get to come and do these things and have so much fun doing them, but hopefully that we also get to continue to put this on is going to help us paint NWSL in the light I think it deserves to be painted [in], give it the attention it deserves and so I’m hoping, in light of the situation, we’re able to just come together with something in common, have a good time and just get prepped for the season.”
The league is expected to assist in projects related to the Los Angeles area’s recovery, with Angel City already leading the way in the NWSL. The city’s women’s soccer team joined its counterparts across the sporting landscape to donate $8 million to relief efforts on Jan. 18, and more will likely follow in the coming weeks.
Sandra Herrera contributed to this report.
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