NASHVILLE, Tenn. — When the Orlando Pride and Kansas City Current meet Friday, a soccer game will double as an unofficial summit between the National Women’s Soccer League Players Association Executive Committee’s highest-ranking elected leaders. For NWSLPA president and Kansas City forward Haley Hopkins and vice president and injured Orlando forward Simone Charley, any encounter is also a Vanderbilt reunion.
A two-sport standout recently inducted into the Vanderbilt Athletics Hall of Fame, Charley earned her NWSL career as an undrafted free agent. A three-time All-SEC selection and two-time All-American at Vanderbilt, Hopkins was a first-round pick. One of them against all odds and the other under the weight of expectations, each carved out a place in one of the most competitive job markets in professional sports. There are thousands of Division I women’s soccer players, not to mention other divisions and international players. Even amid the league’s recent growth, there are at the moment just 14 NWSL rosters.
With the single-minded and sometimes stubborn determination necessary to realize bold ambitions, Charley and Hopkins have kept their places through the vicissitudes of injury, trade, free agency and more. It’s difficult to get to where they are. Yet far from jealously guarding their success and pulling the ladder up behind them, they chose to build stairs.
As leaders of a union approaching its tenth anniversary, they work on behalf of their peers to improve working conditions and ensure a stable and flourishing league. And as willing volunteers in Vanderbilt head coach Darren Ambrose’s mentoring program, Charley with rising junior Melania Fullerton and Hopkins with rising senior Maci Teater, they help the next generation navigate the demands of the moment and embrace the opportunities to come.
“They’re two amazing players at a high level who shared similar characteristics—but in their own unique ways,” Fullerton said. “I’m inspired understanding that even though my journey is unique, I can still get to that level. That’s the beautiful aspect of it. They shared the innate drive and grit to get there and a straightforward vision that they are going to make it no matter what. They came from the same program with the same coach and out of the same school, as rigorous as the school is, and I just think that I can learn a lot from them.”
Haley Hopkins celebrates Vanderbilt’s 2020 SEC Tournament championship…