Why Amy Rodriguez's career is coming 'full circle' with Utah Royals FC, and the high school teammate who brought her back
Why Amy Rodriguez's career is coming 'full circle' with Utah Royals FC, and the high school teammate who brought her back
The Royals are Rodriguez's first head coaching job, bringing her back to the club where she scored 15 goals in 47 appearances from 2018-2020. So why here, and why now for the 36 year old?
SANDY, Utah — Amy Rodriguez’s winding road toward Thursday’s announcement as the next head coach of Utah Royals FC began two decades prior, on an unassuming soccer pitch at Santa Margarita Catholic High School in Rancho Santa Margarita, California.
It was there that an unassuming freshman looked up at the junior team captain on the girls soccer team, and before moving on to Division I soccer and launching her own career as a professional, the senior took the youngster under her wing and mentored her in the way that only a team captain could.
And that youngster went on to be Rodriguez, the two-time PARADE All-American nicknamed “A-Rod” who would win two Olympic gold medals, a World Cup and two NWSL championships during a pro soccer career that spanned from 2008 until her retirement in 2021.
And that older, wiser, veteran team captain? The upper classman at Santa Margarita who took Rodriguez under her wing?
A few weeks ago, she called Rodriguez, to catch up, to check in and to talk about an opportunity. And when Michelle Hyncik, the new team president of the Royals, sent her a Zoom link, Rodriguez knew this was more than a friendly conversation.
“I’ve always respected Michelle, and she was always the smartest one in school, the hardest worker on the field,” said Rodriguez, a USC alum with two decades of professional soccer experience, of Hyncik, the Columbia law grad who worked in general counsel for MLS, the NFL and eventually made her way to Utah with
Real Salt Lake and the Royals. “She talks about how hard I worked as a player, but you always look to the ones before you and above you, and she set a great example. I’m super proud to be joining arms with her, and starting this organization off on an amazing foot.”
But she didn’t have to think long about the offer to be the head coach — a first-time head coach — of a renewed and revamped club where she played from 2018-20, scoring 15 goals in 47 appearances before the franchise moved to Kansas City and Rodriguez eventually retired just two years later.
“What an absolute dream, honor and privilege,” Rodriguez said. “There are moments where I don’t feel deserving of this role, and it’s a very heavy crown to wear.
“But the competitor in me and the player in me has always wanted to strive for excellence, to lead with passion and hard work, and that’s something you’ll definitely get from me.”
But Hyncik called Rodriguez and empowered her — to borrow a word repeated often by the Royals’ team president and first full-time employee — to be the best coach she could be, the best version of the next chapter in the storied career of the goal artist once known as “A-Rod,” who scored 30 goals in 132 appearances with the U.S. women’s national team and now becomes the first NWSL champion named as head coach of a franchise in the decade-old league’s history.
“I’ve talked a lot about making sure that players have the platform to serve as role models to the next generation,” Hyncik said. “But it’s also super important to empower your peers, colleagues, teammates and the women in your generation to help them advance your career.
“That’s what this new era of the NWSL is about: it’s about empowering and uplifting each other, not only the gratefulness and leadership of the women coming before but also our comrades, our teammates and our colleagues.”
Coming back to Utah from the home in Southern California that Rodriguez and her husband Adam, a former USC water polo player, had made for their young, growing family was part of the charm of starting her coaching career, too.
Utah felt right for Rodriguez when her contract was inherited by the Royals from the now-defunct FC Kansas City in 2017, so much so that Rodriguez signed an extension to stay with Utah before the team relocated to Kansas City (and eventually became the Kansas City Current) after U.S. Soccer had released her as an allocated international player.
But the new mother who was coming off an ACL injury never forgot what the organization did for her in those days, nor the community she found when she moved her family into a townhome in the Salt Lake Valley from which she commuted to train and, eventually, start for Laura Harvey’s squad.
“It feels a bit full circle, to be here as a player and now to come back as a coach,” Rodriguez said. “I love this place. I enjoyed my time here greatly, and I can’t wait to be back here again.”
Rodriguez is a first-time head coach, though she’s been an assistant at her alma mater USC since she retired with the North Carolina Courage following the 2021 season.
It’s a steep rise in the profession for the 36-year-old goal scorer who left a lasting impact on her short time with the former Royals, a profession she never imagined she’d join years ago.
Truthfully, Rodriguez never wanted to be a coach, and never thought coaching would be in her future. But when the NWSL Players’ Association and U.S. Soccer offered to put a number of pro players through B-license certification, she signed up for the course.
Rodriguez was one of 24 players to sign up for the course at the time, beginning her training in coaching that has become part of the league’s latest CBA, according to Equalizer’s Jeff Kassouf. And she hopes she isn’t the last.
“It was probably one of the greatest decisions I ever made,” Rodriguez said. “I’m super grateful for the NWSL PA to provide that for me, and look at the doors that it’s opened.”
As far as what kind of a coach Rodriguez will be, the former goal-scoring, heart-on-her-sleeve forward isn’t quite sure yet. She doesn’t know if she’ll opt to pace the sidelines, scream at the ref, or calmly sit on a cooler during matches. She’s not sure what kind of formation or tactics she’ll want to employ, even.
Those will all come with time, and as Utah Royals FC begins identifying, signing and (eventually) drafting players from across the league and abroad to begin play in 2024.
The next step for the club is to identify a general manager, Hyncik noted — but first, they had to find the right skipper.
And everyone in the organization knew one thing about Rodriguez.
“There’s never been any doubt in our mind,” Hyncik said. “Amy is the hardest worker I’ve ever met, the most competitive player on the field I’ve ever witnessed. You rarely have that combination of talent and commitment to winning and to excellence.
“Knowing that Amy is going to bring that to every role that she takes on, there was no hesitation in our minds.”
If nothing else, Hyncik and her peers know one thing about her former high school teammate — and something Rodriguez knows about herself: she’s “insanely competitive.”
“If I can bring a championship here,” Rodriguez said, “that’s what I want to do.”