Megan Rapinoe stood front and center, literally, as her U.S. women's national team legacy began to crystallize. She held a microphone on Sunday night in Chicago. She also held the attention of adoring fans, thousands of whom stuck around after Rapinoe's final USWNT game. She had five minutes to thank them; five minutes to summarize her titanic impact; five minutes to crack jokes, then say goodbye after 17 peerless years.
“This platform, obviously, was built long before I got here,” Rapinoe said Saturday, but as she prepared for her first of four World Cups back in 2011, the USWNT still performed on a side stage. Less than 6,000 people attended their send-off game. Less than 2 million people watched each of their World Cup group games. Only a half-dozen reporters followed them through Germany.
She also remembers sensing opportunity — and a responsibility, according to her worldview, to use her stardom “to make the world a better place.”validated that worldview and hardened her resolve.
, also knelt during the national anthem to protest racial inequities and police brutality. And that's when hate, which diverted attention away from the subjects of her protest, really began to flow.
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