Tampa Bay Sun<\/a> forward’s life was on a very different path.<\/p>\n“I was working for a financial advisor for three years before making the career change of my life,” Parsons said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The backstory:<\/p>\n
Parsons played college soccer at Division II Chico State but rarely saw the field because of injuries and the COVID-19 pandemic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I played only one year, officially, at Chico State with all my injuries and COVID,” Parsons explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I had six stats to my name.”<\/p>\n
After college, Parsons made stats her day-to-day job while working as a financial advisor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But that is when the itch to play competitive soccer returned.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I just started playing pickup and 7v7 co-ed (soccer) and just fell in love with the game again,” Parsons said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Eventually, Parsons joined a men’s only league in her hometown of Sacramento to continue playing before deciding to attend a professional combine for the new women’s USL Super League.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While Madi still wasn’t set on playing professionally, that feeling changed when she got a call from Lexington SC and an offer to play professional soccer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“When I graduated I thought that was the end of it, and I was just playing for fun,” Parsons said.<\/p>\n
“But I’m learning to just roll with the punches of what life throws me and this was part of it.”<\/p>\n
After her first season in the USL Super League, Parsons’ contract in Lexington wasn’t renewed. But that is when the Sun stepped in and picked up the former financial advisor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What they’re saying:<\/p>\n
“I just feel like that’s the story of so many people,” said Sun head coach Denise Schilte-Brown.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
“They give up in those moments because they believe that to be the truth. If Madi had given up in those moments, she would never be where she is today.”<\/p>\n
From a nine to five in finance to 90-minute games of professional soccer, Madi Parsons’ journey is one this former financial advisor would advise herself to follow any day.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Yes I would!” Madi said with a laugh.<\/p>\n
“This has been a crazy experience that I’ve had but one that I would not change for anything.”<\/p>\n
What’s next:<\/p>\n
Parsons and the Sun travel to Washington D.C., for a Thursday night game against DC Power FC at 7:00pm.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Source: The information was gathered by FOX 13’s Sean Barie while interviewing Tampa Bay Sun FC forward Madi Parsons and head coach Denise Schilte-Brown.<\/p>\n
Sports<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. – Every time Madi Parsons steps onto a soccer pitch, she is already living her dream.\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203669,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[110,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-203668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-sports","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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