{"id":127106,"date":"2025-09-02T11:44:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T11:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/127106\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T11:44:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T11:44:07","slug":"why-cindy-parlow-cones-1999-world-cup-legacy-shapes-u-s-soccer-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/127106\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Cindy Parlow Cone\u2019s 1999 World Cup legacy shapes U.S. Soccer today"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Cindy Parlow Cone<\/a> has a soft spot in her heart for World Cups, having played in two and won one. Fewer than a couple of hundred people in history can make that claim.<\/p>\n

But next June, Cone, president of U.S. Soccer, will do something that has never been done before when she becomes the first female national federation head to preside over soccer\u2019s biggest tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou will see a lot of me. Being the host country, we will be very visible,\u201d Cone said of an event the U.S. will share with Mexico and Canada. \u201cIt\u2019s FIFA\u2019s show; they\u2019re running the tournament. We will be largely focused on the impact of the World Cup and growing our game.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first time the World Cup was held in the U.S.<\/a>, it had quite an impact on growing the game since its legacy included the birth of a first-division league in MLS and a $60-million surplus that was invested in soccer development at the grassroots level.<\/p>\n

It was also the first World Cup a 16-year-old Cone watched on television. Inspired by the experience, she wound up playing in one five years later, scoring two goals and assisting on two others to help the U.S. win its second of four championships<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That 1999 team, which saw 12 of its 20 members inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame, is widely considered to be the best women\u2019s team of all-time. And Cone, who is one of those 12 hall of famers, said being part of it changed the direction of her life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ll ever grow tired of talking about the \u201899 team,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t think I would be the person that I am or in the leadership position that I am without having played on the women\u2019s national team and literally grew up with some of the best leaders I\u2019ve ever been around.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust watching and learning from all of my teammates was hugely impactful in terms of shaping me as a person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cone arrived at the World Cup just six weeks past her 21st birthday, making her the second-youngest player on the team. So she mostly kept her mouth shut and her eyes open, drinking in a master class on leadership.<\/p>\n

\u201cMia [Hamm] led very differently than Carla [Overbeck] and Carla led very differently than Julie Foudy and so on,\u201d she said. \u201cAs a young player [I] was quiet and reserved, trying to figure out what was going to be my style. They just let me be me and grow into my voice in my own time.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that education has proven invaluable during a career than has taken her from World Cup and Olympic player, to coach \u2014 she guided the Portland Thorns to the first NWSL title in 2013 \u2014 to the top of U.S. Soccer as the federation\u2019s first women president, a title she assumed in 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve learned throughout my career leadership is leadership,\u201d she said. \u201cSo regardless of the audience or situation, transitioning from being a player to then a coach and now on the executive side, all the same principles of leadership apply.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cone is quick to admit she doesn\u2019t know everything so her leadership style is straightforward and transparent, relying on collaboration and empowerment while emphasizing teamwork and communication. But she is also results-oriented and not afraid to take on large or complicated issues.<\/p>\n

Those are all traits she learned as a player. Yet she\u2019s not the only one whose life was transformed by the laurels and the lessons that came from the 1999 World Cup.<\/p>\n

Brandi Chastain<\/a>, who delivered the penalty kick that defeated China in the final, wound up on the Wheaties box, became a pitchwoman for shoes, beer and inflammatory bowel disease awareness, then helped found an NWSL expansion team in the San Francisco Bay Area. Hamm started a foundation, served on the board of AS Roma, a top-flight men\u2019s team in Italy, and was a founding investor<\/a> in two professional soccer teams in Los Angeles, LAFC<\/a> and Angel City<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s Joy Fawcett<\/a>, who gave up teaching to coach at Long Beach City College before founding the women\u2019s program at UCLA. She is now an assistant coach with the U.S. deaf national team.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did create opportunities for ourselves and each other,\u201d Fawcett said. \u201cAnd yeah, it changed a lot of our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

None of that happens, goalkeeper Briana Scurry<\/a> said, if the Americans don\u2019t win that World Cup final before the largest crowd to watch a women\u2019s game in the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we don\u2019t win, yeah, we\u2019re not talking now,\u201d said Scurry, who went on to become a general manager, coach, club investor and author. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of things that had to happen in the right order, in the right way for this to occur. We bullied our way in there by winning that title.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a really big launch pad for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet none of the women from the \u201899 team have flown higher than Cone, who also made history when, as federation president, she negotiated the 2022 accord that made the men\u2019s and women\u2019s national teams the first in the world to agree to parity in pay and working conditions. She was also instrumental in making U.S. Soccer\u2019s modern 200-acre training center in Georgia happen and in launching a probe into harassment and sexual abuse that threatened to end the NWSL but wound up making the league stronger and healthier.<\/p>\n

She\u2019ll break another barrier next summer when the largest, longest and most complicated World Cup in history kicks in the U.S. Only nine other FIFA members \u2014 there are 211 in all \u2014 have women presidents and none of them have played host to a World Cup. For Cone, 47, it will be another slice of history \u2014 but she hopes it won\u2019t be the last one.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I\u2019m still pretty young,\u201d she said. \u201cSo I hope that I\u2019m not done yet. I don\u2019t know what my legacy is going to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u26bd You have read the latest installment of On Soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and shines a spotlight on unique stories. Listen to Baxter on this week\u2019s episode of the \u201cCorner of the Galaxy\u201d podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cindy Parlow Cone has a soft spot in her heart for World Cups, having played in two and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,11986,81057,81061,5460,81058,81060,473,66903,271,3591,3,11351,81059,1599,81056,21,19,22,20,25,24,81055],"class_list":["post-127106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-coach","tag-cone","tag-first-division-league","tag-game","tag-good-woman","tag-hamm","tag-history","tag-leadership-position","tag-life","tag-lot","tag-news","tag-none","tag-olympic-player","tag-team","tag-u-s-soccer","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-world-cup-legacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}