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Part 3: The Safe Place

Published Mar 29, 2022, 7:01 AM

Throughout Jessica McDonald's tumultous childhood, there was one person she could always turn to: her grandmother Abbie, who becomes McDonald's biggest cheerleader. McDonald becomes a superstar for multiple Cactus High School sports teams, but the Sereno Soccer Club she plays for after school is where she truly stands out. And as McDonald leads Sereno to multiple state titles, she catches the eye of legendary University of North Carolina women’s soccer coach Anson Dorrance. Suddenly, soccer is more than a distraction; it becomes an escape from Phoenix entirely.

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The host of Payback is Alex Andrejev. It's produced by Kata Stevens, Casey Toth, Julia Wall, and executive producer Davin Coburn. The executive producer for iHeartRadio is Sean Titone.

Long Shot is a production of McClatchy Studios and I Heeart Radio. Previously on Payback. Jessica's mom throughout high school would get letters of intent from all of these schools, and my mom always kept them. She taught me sacrifice. She sacrificed not going to college for me. Essentially, I did like five years when I was off in I was missing my keys, and you know, I watched my mom get a views a lot, and then she would reciprocate that on me. Thank God for sport. That was my escape. They were just going to run one lap around the track and Jessica just left the pack. She happened to be at soccer field one day and she was just smashing balls into the KNT. It's the spring and producer caught to Stevens and I were entering a small stucco house in Glendale, Arizona. It's not that different from the other Adobe style homes in the New brohood. It has a terra cotta colored roof and characteristics of traditional Southwestern architecture. A pair of large shrubs sits at the top of the walkway, and the grass that frames the short driveway in the sidewalk is brown, dehydrated, and patchy. It's nothing particularly noteworthy from the exterior, but that's not the case once you go inside. Thank you for having us. I'm Alice, okay, so I was the one you talked to you on the phone earlier. This is for Jessica McDonald. This house was a refuge during her teenage years when being at home was untenable. Sometimes it was a good option, other times it was the only option, but it was always here when jess needed it. This is the home of Abby McDonald, Jesse's maternal grandmother. Thank you guys for coming. This is a great day because you got a game coming out. Did you play a sacca? I played volleyball growing up. Kevin McDonald, Jesse's uncle, brought us here. The soccer match on the big screen TV in the living room is a testament to Abby's love of the game. But the thing you can't miss are the photos and her love for her family. Nearly every square inch of her home, living room, kitchen, bedroom is covered in family pictures. This me and my kid. Who's h this is me? This is uh so the rain, Dammy Stephanie, Tracy, Laurie Michael In this Kevin Kevin moved into this home to help take care of Abby after she suffered a stroke. Soccer is a big thing, so we always make sure we catch every game. We just want her to be as comfortable as possible because she did so much for everybody. You know, above and beyond what any parent should do, and sometimes what any grandparents should do. But as Abby sees it, she's always done exactly what was needed to help her family. When I gotta call that Tracy her bar free and and what we're going on in the department, I'm knocked on that door boom as to give me Jess out of there. I browed to my house as you have. Free from the Charlotte Observer, Raleigh News and Observer, McClatchy Studios, and I Heart Radio. This is Payback. I'm Alexandrea and this is part three. The Safe Place. We are at Cactus High School. Kevin met us here and that's Justica's uncle who's been facilitating. He's kind of talking to someone right now to hopefully let us in the gym to walk around and see some of Justice's old trophies and banners that are up Cactus High School on the north side of Glendale is known for sports. Since it opened in the late seventies, the Cobras have produced roughly a dozen professional athletes across baseball, football, and soccer. My daughter went here, actually she played basketball here. She actually made party as a freshman, so that was a good thing. And few families in Glendale played sports at a level like the McDonald's. Were you here, Yeah, yeah, I think I came her junior senior year. So I was a teacher back in the day, so I didn't have her any classes or anything. But remember she played basketball, and the whole family's like legendary. So as soon as you said the last name, I'm like, whatever, you need to committed what you want. So this is David Saraphin, the assistant principal at Cactus. Sara Fin agreed to show us around the school, and any tour of Cactus High starts with the sports trophy case. Yeah, so I think she was for the two thousand four championship, so I think her pictures there. There's her trophy, right, is that? Yeah? It's also the carpets, the walls. Everything inside the school looks square and modern and gray or beige, except for the accents and a color known as Columbia blue. It's the same color I war as a volleyball player in college. I'm here in the desert. It might as well be me on jem too. Got the hardwood floors, Yeah, help the pictures up at the athletes. Sarafin told us that today Cactus High has about dred students, but that it used to be larger back when jess and her half brother Brandon attended the school, and their cousins before them, and their parents before that. It seems the past few years are pretty much the first ones when there hasn't been a McDonald at the school. Their sturdy six state championships in there, and the McDonald family was a part of a lot of those. Just a very legendary on our campus. The entire family and especially Jessica. Features still follow her story and there was a lot of interest in the soccer after what she was able to accomplish. Paraffin led us to the school bookstore and their yearbook archive there. If you want to grab her here, let's see if we can find her two thousand five or seniors. Ah, that is a very classic looking tank, little necklace, the short hair she has, I know what's the exact same jess letters and track, basketball and volleyball for the Lady Cobras. Her accomplishments spoke for themselves, but they're in those yearbooks. We caught glimpses of young Jesse's personality. Jessica McDonald of the hip Hop Club, but some serious moves at the homecoming assembly. Hip hop Club. That's a new one. She's gonna have a lot of pictures of her clowning around because she is a big goofball. Kevin McDonald told us that despite everything going on in her home, jess was widely regarded by her teachers as a bit of a class clown. Jessica likes a lot of R and B and hip hop music. She has a another side to her that the old Nirvana and stuff like that. She loved that kind of stuff, but mostly R and B. You put a good hip hop song, and like I said, she was stopping traffic to make sure she's dancing correctly to the music. You know, she's always trying to have maximum fun. That's what I would always call her, maximum fun. She was just one of the you know, sweetest kids I ever coach here. Knew she was just a really nice kid, great person to having class. Mark Ryan was just as junior English teacher at Cactus saraph and spontaneously called him on his cell phone, A'll be towards the school, and then he handed us the phone. But I until I saw her on the basketball court, I'd never really give that my tend. It was just kind of a wow experience immediately. Ryan was also an assistant coach on her basketball team, and jess helped lead them to to state titles in two thousand four. In two thousand six, we would do tend suicide and they kind of did it their own taste, and she'd be finished while everybody else about like on their fifth or sixth long. Honestly, she is the best you know after I've ever seen in person. Key Well, you've got to have one key player. That key player is Jessica McDonald. While everybody else was still running, she'd start doing push ups. One of the best athletes in the state, definitely the best athlete on the floor today. Is a very legendary on our campus, the entire family and especially Jessica. You want She's at the state record for the four hundred and her first year ever running track I'm noted that Jessica is who she is. I'm like she'd beat boys and girls too much. Mad the Cores have reclaimed the state championship. It was it was kind of nuts. She was just incredible to watch, and yet for all her athletic success, that Cactus High. It was the sport Jess played elsewhere that offered her a way out of Glendale and a woman who had never played sports herself who showed her it was possible. More on that after the break four to one, that's got to be it. Yeah, because this is Kevin's track. Okay good. Jess McDonald's parents may argue over where she got her athletic talent, but Jess told us there's no question where she got her grit. Okay you for having us my grandmother. She grew up in Alabama and they're easy boards and good piece. She's gone through way more than I can possibly imagine. This picture appear the big, the big African art picture having McDonald is eighty four years old. Now. She's a petite woman and sat in a wheelchair when we met her at home a few years back. A stroke cost her some of her mobility and her speech is no longer as clear as it once was. Yeah about it about forty years ago, But her physical ailments are easy to forget, offset by her frequent animated laughter, So everything in is like me. Abby graduated from an all black high school in Alexander City, Alabama, in the nineteen fifties. She did her part for gender equality as well and listening in the Air Force as part of her program that had grown during the Korean War All Roder Air Force F six three Your Pure to Land. The women in the Air Force were known as Laughs and were celebrated in recruiting videos like this one from Ninette. Now over here in the field of Air Force communications are newly created wafts specialists who send messages over a worldwide network by push button teletype. Abby was sent up state New York for training on how to use those teletype machines. Though she told us she was one of only two black students in the class and that our instructor expected her to fail, So she responded the only way she knew how and made hask Going the class. He got up in front of the person at the oh we're gonna phase out made the last grade in here, and he was upset he didn't know me. I'm a worker and I can do anything. Abby was cunning in the classroom, but other wives experienced her sharp tongue whenever they got on her bad side, Like one woman who Abby's does called her the un word to her face. I looked at that. So what did you say? As it bids you don't lost your mind? I'm gonna ring your name the grandma shoot back, big Abby, Yeah, you don't hold back. Nope, punch just as father Vince meires Vince math big gott be right. Around the time he and Tracy got pregnant, we had a rough door s I no, you don't buck. As the years went on, I gotta like being Abby. She talked about people right there in fun they face, I'll be we let me ease down here. Here's so we're gonna be fighting up over here. She cool, she fell like it, Eve, I like Abby told us that her relationship with Jesse's mother, Tracy, was often tempestuous. When Tracy was a teenager, Abby thought her rebelliousness was becoming recklessness. During Jesse's childhood and home full of abuse and neglect, Jesse's grandmother became the one person she could rely on as well. She knew things that was happening with my mom. She didn't necessarily know my mom's attitude towards me. She just knew like there were times I needed help, that was it. Whatever was just said to her, that was it. And she was there for me a lot throughout my life. Like without my grandmother, I wouldn't be where I am today. I just wouldn't. She's definitely the backbone of the family. Abby remembers one night in particular, and the terrified phone call she received saying Tracy and her boyfriend were fighting and Jesse needed help. Abby told me she raced over to Jesse's home and slammed on the door when I got a call that Tracy her bar freend and what were going on in the department. I didn't even put on my globe. I just put on my robe, put I'm made some shoes and went there and knocked on that door. I didn't knock our bawn boom boom has to give me Jessic out of there and about desk the my house because in my house is peace. They ain't on that boo. I brought to my house as you're free, kids don't have no reading to suffer. If we could pick our pants, we will. We would be everything in the world if we could choose them. But we don't choose that. Parents, dog it. We can't just became a regular. That be's home. In the following years, spending a few days here, a few nights there, when it became clear that Tracy wouldn't be a ton in Jessice games. Growing up, Abby did so when she could. Sports were never Abby's calling, but Jess, as her grandmother, taught her other lessons that were valuable on the field, and that was particularly true in a Phoenix suburb or Jess was always one of the few black students in her class, and often the only black player in the game, so I really didn't understand, like we knew we were black. And she would always mention, you know, you're the only black kid out there, the only black kid at this tournament, and you can't react the way people are expecting you to react. If something happens, Oh, you're gonna call me this to my face in the field, and my grandmother be like, you shut her up with your actions, You shut her up with your skill, you shut her up with you know, your soccer intelligence. As what is your name? What is your name? Let's call that to you. Only thing they do and they want you to get kicked out of game because you better play than what they are and don't fall in that trap. You know, we were taught that racism was going to exist. There's just something to expect because we were the only black kids growing up and so we had to carry ourselves in a different manner than any other kid out there. If I would have gone into the same tackles and curse the ref out the way. You know my teammate has who's white, I'd probably have a red card because of my skin color. I told her, don't let nobody steal your joy, and I'm saying that to vote for you. Don't let nobody's do your joy. Okay, keep it in man. And when I say you're gonna win, you're gonna win. Keep it in man. And with Abbey in her corner, just found that joy with the Sereno Soccer Club. This is the weightlifting that's less Armstrong showing us around the Victoria north of Phoenix, a complex where elite soccer stars in their early years on their raw talents. Arms Strong was the director of this Reno Soccer Club. This place is massive. It's you know, I mean, I'm not sure if you know that Arizona well, but this is right in the middle of everything, in a state full of deserts, being in the middle of everything can feel like the middle of nowhere. But that's also a great place to build a destination training center. With almost seventeen thousand square feet of court space, bleachers, state of the art locker rooms, medical staff, and more. They have building all these soccer fields on this side here, amazing fields. I'm sure of duck quality. If Jess were coming up through the system now, this is likely where she would train even as a professional. It's an option when she comes back to Arizona. When I initially watched her play, she was terrible. I mean, her first touch was terrible. The ball would bounce off of her legs and you know, but she was so fast she could catch anything, and the end of mistake she made she was able to make up for. Without athletic ability, Multiple female athletes who went on to play in the World Cup also play it at Serena, including Sidney LaRue and Julie Arts for the US team. In Adriana Romero for Mexico how a game and boots so much a year after year or she got a little bit better and a little bit better and a little bit better, and thought she was one of the ones like she would see it to the rest of stop whine and let's get home with it. I can't ever remember having to reprimand Jess about anything talking box. She was an extremely polite kid. I know she had a very strict grandma. Um, she would be the one that would be maybe complaining about stuff. Jess ultimately played for Serena for seven years outside of Cactus High, she would become a soccer star. I was just very grateful to obviously join such a great team and great coaching staff as well. Here's Jess and I was like, all right, this this has got to be my primary sport now. Now I see what Brandon has been going through and why he feels the way he feels about the sport. It seems clear that the stability and guidance Jess received on the field had ripple effects off of it. That was something of a theme we discovered in Jessic's life and a dynamic that often unfolds for athletes from disadvantaged backgrounds. What we do know from the child development literature is that for those youth that do not have a stable, loving, caring adult in their own household, those needs are not being met. Nicole Lavoy is the director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport at the University of Minnesota. Over the past thirty years, the Tucker Center has led research, education, and advocacy for girls and women in sport. They often will seek another non familial significant other in their lives that can provide that stability, and many times that person is a coach. Having someone feel cared about, valued, seen, heard that is immensely important to the development of youth because we know that when youth have one positive of carrying significant adult in their life, it can buffer the toxicity and neglect and abused experienced in other parts of their life. Thanks to the structure and guidance at Sereno and support from her grandmother, That's truly came into her own On the field. Whereas other players had a tendency to try different positions, Jess only had one striker. She went straight to the goal all the time. Individual statistics weren't really kept for Justice Club teams. But we know she helped Serena win the state title every year she played for them. Grandma was a little bit overly exuberant, let's see, in the sidelines, and she was just probably less armstrong. Again, all the men were afraid of them. She wouldn't take any crop from them. So it was good, you know, because it kept them shut up. You know, I just thought it was funny. But playing a club sport for a club the caliber of Sereno is expensive. With team fees and offseason camps and field maintenance and coaches salaries and uniforms and more are playing club soccer can cost more than a few thousand dollars a year. Jess told us her family couldn't afford that for one child, much less for Jess and Brandon. Yeah, club soccer is very expective. We couldn't afford that. My brother and I. We didn't pay a single scent for soccer. Our club paid for us. It was like a scholarship. They paid for us to play, and so did other parents who were part of our teams. You know. The only thing we paid for release, you know, and shin guard, and that's it. We reached out through Armstrong to the families that helped Jess and her brother financially. They declined to participate in this podcast, so we don't know if their reasons were purely altruistic or perhaps because having Jess on the field their own daughters look better, but Armstrong said that they were happy to support the McDonald's. The thing about Jess was nopody resented anything because she was such a good teammate to such a wonderful kid, you know, nice to everybody. Even though she got many many accolades, she never you wouldn't have known it by talking to her, you know, just a humble kid. As the attention around Jessice success at Serina grew, it wasn't long before college coaches started coming to watch, including the one person who may be most central to the history of women's soccer in the United States and who would have a lasting impact on Jess's life. It's the United States against Norway for the first ever women's World Championship of Soccer. The head coach of the USA, Anson Dora Anson Dorrance, coached the U S women's national team to their first World championship. In our ambition, what to get here? Our ambitions? To win this thing, so frankly will be disappointed if we don't come out the winner. Dorance earned that position through his ongoing success at the University of North Carolina. Over the past forty years in Chapel Hill, Dorance has won twenty two national championships. I mean, you'd have to be blamed to not see Jess McDonald. Every single coach in the country wanted Jess McDonald. But Anson downs Is at that time, he's God, you know. Less Armstrong told us that over the years Florences are scruited multiple Sereno players. There was some other schools obviously for how they would have given do scholarships for Jess, you know, I mean at that time, she was just that dominant you know, at that time in the North Carolina was they will win in national championships of the year. You know. Of course they wanted to go down and so a Titan of Soccer scheduled a recruiting visit to Glendale. But Jess told us that on one of the most important days of her life, everything almost fell apart. More on that after the break on normal weekday mornings in the spring of two thousand five, Jess drove herself here to Cactus High School. It was her junior year and Jess had a Nissan Ultima. Brandon had left her when he went away to college in California. On normal days, she would park and walk towards the big blue front door. The day Dorns came to town, it was not a normal day. Oh, I woke up. I was super nervous because this is my dream of school. It's in my dream school since I was a little girl. North Carolina Women's soccer is arguably the greatest dynasty in all of college sports. But because Jess came to soccer a bit later, she told us her connection to the school became a bit different Michael Jordan's. I grew up watching Michael Jordan's and you know, he made tar Heel a thing. You know, he made it like the school you want to go to, the colors, the environment, everything, And so as early as I can remember, I've always wanted to be guitar hill. Lawrence told us that even beyond her talent, Jess's determination stood out. She puts something on her shoulder that all right, I'm going to prove myself today. Every coach loves that kind of player that just works and works and works and works and works. They always feel like they have something to prove. For me, that was Jessica. Jess though college and Chapel Hill could be her escape aunts, and Lawrence was coming to meet my mom. And mom this important day. Make sure you calm my girl, launch break. This is when ans is going to be here. Like a parent has to be present. If a parent is not present, then it's like against like n c A A regulations. It was like, you know, a long list of rules here. So I had to have parent guardian there, and she knew. The recruiting process for us is usually a phone call once a week. Durrance again. And so for me it was you know, whether I could get her on the phone, and then when I didn't, I am speaking usually actually to the grandmother, but originally it wasn't the grandmother, it was the mother. So of course, you know, I'm thinking, oh, gosh, okay, So she's bouncing between households growing up, and I get it. I know why the grandmother's involved. It's just as sports notoriety grew, it introduced a new and uncomfortable dynamic with her mother. Tracy. Yeah, I remember at one point it kind of made her feel uncomfortable, but she somewhat supported me. She's like, oh, you're doing good, okay good, and that was kind of it. It wasn't the kind of support that people would expect from their parents. Teen motherhood had caused Tracy McDonald to end her athletic career before it ever really began, and now Jess was on the verge of realizing the very success Tracy never did. Tracy did not respond to repeated interview requests for this podcast. I can only recall I met a mom twice at games serena director less Armstrong again. She might have been at more because I don't go over and you know, introduce myself to the parents. So I don't know why. You know, never Rosked never inquired. I just maybe I shoot him. The day of Jess's official big visit with Lawrence, she says things at home with her mother were tense. Tracy also needed to use the car Brandon had left in Glendale, so Jess told us her mom drove her to school. I remember just reading her vibe and it just like wasn't a good one. It was like, oh, this is this is the Tracy I'm getting today. Okay, Let'm not just even saying anything, you know, but like we're in the car, and then I finally just said something back to her. And I've never we're spoken back to my mom ever. I just let her just, you know, say these crazy things, these crazy things. And this day I just about had it and I said something to her and she just punched me right in my mouth and she was like, you don't talk back to me. We pull up to my school. Here I am with this bloody lip. I'm like, I just started my day off like this. I'm over it. I just spent much of the morning fighting back tears. But even beyond the shock of getting hit, she wasn't sure who would attend the meeting with Dlorance. NC Double abor rules required a parent were a guardian to be present, so she called one of both and then they I think her and a mom I got into it. So she called me up to the school and me to sack the coach. Jess told us that the phone call asking her father and Smires to come to Cactus High it was about the first time she remembers asking him for anything. I founked out afterwards everything afterwards, you know, she told me, I beast, she got into a fight. I know. Oh, Mama, I hate it. Just also called her grandmother. Abby told us she never knew the specifics of the incident in the car, but when something goes wrong and a child is hurt, Abby has heard all she needs to. Did she ever talk to you about this? No, but I knew there was something going on, and you don't need to know the pacific But when Sam going around a child hurt, you know it's bad and it's about about it. I'm both Fence and Abby attended the meeting with Drance, but Jess's mind was already miles away on the verge of her dreams. All she could think about was the grim reality of the altercation in the car. Why why did you do that? Are you kidding me? It was heartbreaking, man, It's like one of the most heartbreaking moments that I've ever had with my mom. And I ate that that is still in my memory, but that's just the thing that will never die out of my mind. And you know, the life changing day for me. And just like so many different kinds of ways, like holy crap, the meeting itself was a blur on the most important day of Jesse's young life. She was completely unaware of herself as a body in space, of her future as an athlete, of what might be waiting for her going home that night. But somewhere in that day just made a choice to disrupt the cycles of the present, even if it cost her future. And on part four of Payback, I ran away from home when I was seventeen years old, and to this day, I have not been back since. When she told me what she dealt with, I was just in tears something. How do you deal with that? My life just completely changed. I'm seventeen years old on my own, trying to take care of myself. Someone stripped of the tools in high school to try to succeed at collegiate level. Is going to continue to have to fight tooth and nail to recover Jess Donald, I'm ALEXANDREEV. Payback is a production of The Charlotte Observer, Raleigh News and Observer, McClatchy Studios, and iHeart Radio. It's produced by Cotta Stevens, Casey Toth, Julia Wall, and Davin Cockburn. The executive producer for iHeart Radio is sewn Ty Tone. For lots more on this story, and to support journalism like this, visit Charlotte observer dot com slash payback or news observer dot com slash payback. And for more podcasts for My heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,

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In 2019, U.S. women’s national soccer team striker Jessica McDonald capped a World Cup journey few c 
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