A high school soccer player from Boston is spending her summer as a coach to the next generation of athletes through Soccer Unity Project, which teaches much more than just how to score a goal.
Bryie Woods, a senior at Cristo Rey High School, said stepping on the soccer field helped her find her voice.
Soccer player at Cristo Rey High School
“I started playing just to, like, get outside, just get active, I feel like I found people that have the same passion as me, that I get to bond over with them,” said Woods. “When I’m on the field and especially during a game and I get the ball, I feel like I’m performing. Like I feel like I’m onstage performing, like I feel like I have to do my absolute best.”
“It’s amazing when you put people into positions that they can sort of find things within them they didn’t know they had,” said Caroline Foscato, the president and founder of Soccer Unity Project.
Woods is working with the Soccer Unity Project to help train young athletes on the field. Foscato said she’s seen her grow.
“She is a brilliant, amazing young woman that is not the loudest in the room. Is not the first to shout out,” said Foscato. “But she has been developing over the summer these skills of, like, through her coaching the kids and it’s just been really amazing to watch her leadership develop.
“I’ve seen her patience grow a lot more and the way she talks to the kids, she understands how to talk to them, like coming to eye level and all that stuff.,” said teammate Jazelle Ortega. She met Woods on the soccer field at school. “Me and her both play defense together, so we have a lot of chemistry,” said Ortega. “She’s a very hard worker and she is a little bit quiet but once you get to know her, she’s very outgoing.”
Woods said growing up in Dorchester in a home with her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, who recently passed, helped shape her into the person she is today.
“With four generations of women, I feel like I was just taught to stand strong by myself, whether I have people behind me or not,” said Woods.
“There’s a lot of different ways to be a leader.”
Woods also attended the Youth Leaders Summit in Pennsylvania this year.
“There’s a lot of different ways to be a leader, there’s no set rules to be a leader,” said Woods. “Being a leader is to be empathetic, like to truly see people for what they’re going through and take them as they are.”
“It can be the person that’s supportive, it can be the person that’s encouraging and nourishing,” said Foscato. “And she’s one of those people. She really is, you see it the way she interacts with the other teens.”
And Woods, who’s also taking several honors classes at school, loves being out on the field with the younger players.
“Seeing them get more excited to come every week is a great feeling. And seeing them get the enrichment that I didn’t get to have when I was younger, I wish I started playing earlier,” said Woods. “So seeing them get to start at such an early age is fulfilling.”
Woods said she hopes to attend college next year to become a dermatologist.