Say it Ain't So!

It was beginning to seem like the inevitable outcome as weeks and months passed without any indication of her return, but Sam Mewis’ post on Friday announcing her retirement still felt like a punch in the gut.

Mewis was so much more than the “Tower of Power.” Her soccer intelligence, wit, and ability to dominate a game made her a champion wherever she played. She is a three-time NWSL champion (Western New York Flash and twice with the North Carolina Courage) and was a standout on the 2019 World Cup Champion USWNT. She helped Manchester City win the FA Cup in 2020 and was the 2020 U.S. Soccer Player of the Year.

Blame Canada (jk…maybe)

A knee injury during a USWNT friendly match against Canada in 2017 dogged the midfielder for several years. She had surgery in 2021 and again in 2023, but it seems her recovery and rehabilitation weren’t progressing as hoped. Not only that, it became a quality of life issue. “My goal started being: I want to walk my dog and not limp for awhile. I recognized that I had other things to live for besides being good at soccer,” she said in a Wall Street Journal interview.

An Exciting New Role

The door may have closed to her playing career, but Mewis won’t be moving far away. In her retirement announcement, she revealed that she is joining the Men in Blazers team as the Editor-in-Chief of “The Women’s Game,” a new media enterprise under the MiB umbrella that will cover women’s soccer globally.

I’m glad that Mewis has found a way to stay connected to women’s soccer, and I’m especially excited that she’ll have a media role (“Snacks,” her podcast with Lynn Williams, was in regular rotation on my playlist). It was such a privilege getting to watch Sam Mewis dominate the game. Always and forever a champion.