Angel City FC captain Sarah Gorden opens up about motherhood, raising her soccer-loving son Caiden, leadership and her journey as a professional athlete.
As the rose-gold hues of SoCal’s famous hour washed across the soccer field at Angel City Football Club’s training facility, Team Captain Sarah Gorden and her son Caiden kicked a blue-and-white soccer ball back and forth, giggling and panting as each attempted to best the other. Above them, flocks of crows circled the cloudless blue sky before descending on the surrounding hillside, their loud cries cutting across the field like a cheering audience.
Interim Head Coach Leif Gunnar Smerud had canceled practice at the Thousand Oaks facility for the day, but Gorden is always working. After L.A. Parent’s photo shoot with her and Caiden, who is 11, she was headed into the studio for another project.
Before she darted off, we sat on a bench for a few moments to chat about the team, motherhood and something else close to her heart: helping girls in disenfranchised communities connect to a greater sense of themselves through meditation and other wellness activities.
What kind of season is the team having so far?
We’re having a pretty good season. We started really strong. We started 3-0, and we dipped a little bit. And then, we came back from our summer break, and we started 3-0 off that break, and then we’ve just kind of dipped a little bit.
And there’s been some adversity. Our head coach got let go a few months ago. But I feel like it’s a beautiful season in a lot of ways because we found higher highs than I’ve ever experienced here at Angel City — with three wins in a row and just, like, a really good group of women. It’s the best I’ve ever been around.
It’s been up, it’s been down, but I’m hoping we find our place to make the playoffs and have a year like we’ve never had here at Angel City.
Tell me about growing up in Chicago and when you first fell in love with soccer.
I grew up right outside of Chicago, in a small little suburb near the airport. My parents put me in soccer when I was 6 years old, and I didn’t care about soccer. I was doing other girls’ hair on the field.
And then, when I was maybe 11 or 12, I started becoming an athlete on the field. I was fast, I was enjoying the game, and that’s when it got a little bit more serious for me. I started playing club soccer, and I just never looked back. I really enjoyed the competition, the validation I got from performing well. And getting lost in the game was always something that felt good for me.
At what point did you say, “OK, this is what I want to pursue professionally?”
I didn’t know I wanted to play professionally until after I had my son, and the NWSL [National Women’s Soccer League] was growing, and people were playing and making money and succeeding. I was like, “Wow, I don’t think I want to stop playing soccer.”
Challenges and success stories as team captain?
This is my third season being captain, and I feel like I’m finally authentically, myself in the role. The first few years were so difficult. Being captain, people rely on you on the field and off the field. And being a Virgo, I also have high expectations for myself.
I think that I’ve realized now, in year three, that the best thing I can do in the role is kind of be myself. On the field, you have to be mentally tuned in because you’re always communicating with your teammates on the field as captain.
I do feel like being a mom — and being a young mom — really prepared me to succeed.
What was the experience of becoming a mother while pursuing your soccer career like?
I actually had my son when I was in college. I got pregnant at the end of my sophomore year, so I had him while I was playing Division I.
That experience was a wild ride. I was 20 when I got pregnant, and I just remember it wasn’t necessarily the time that anyone was expecting you to have a baby, and I felt very isolated going through that pregnancy. Obviously, after Caiden was born, he was so celebrated and loved, and everyone was happy to see him, but the pregnancy was difficult and very isolating.
Back then, there weren’t as many doctors and PTs looking after you as a woman who just gave birth. I came back [to soccer] like two weeks after. Had practice and everything, which, now, would never happen.
How did you navigate those early years of parenting?
It was difficult being young and trying to raise him while playing soccer and being in college and starting my professional career, but it was a beautiful journey with the two of us. We always had each other and figured things out together in a lot of ways. I grew up while I was a mom, you know, because I was so young.
After I had Caiden, my parents would watch him when I was in college and would travel for games, and I had some close friends who were super helpful in supporting me and watching him.
How have parenting and playing soccer informed each other?
Back when I wasn’t making a lot of money, we relied on government aid to make things work. But I learned a lot going through difficult things. I learned how to be resilient and deal with my emotions and just try to make it all work.
It was never perfect, but it was special, it was different and it was unique. And so now, being a captain and a leader and an 11-year professional, I feel like my difficulties have made me into who I am.
And something else that’s special is Caiden getting to grow up around the game, getting to grow up around the girls and the different teams I’ve been on. I feel like he has such a respect for soccer, women’s sports, women in general.
And Caiden is a soccer player, too! Did you teach him?
He just naturally picked up a soccer ball and started kicking one as soon as he could walk. He loves soccer, and he doesn’t want to play any other sport. And he’s really good!
What lessons have you learned in being Caiden’s mom?
Caiden and I have a lot of conversations about emotions and feelings. Obviously, I’m raising a Black boy in America. It’s important that he knows that there’s space for what he feels…
And honestly, not to brag about him, but so many people tell me how respectful he is, how polite he is and how kind he is. I’m proud of him because I just feel like he moves in an authentic and beautiful way.
I’m here to love and nurture him, but I want him to be him. I don’t want one of those relationships where he’s doing things for me, or where he feels like he has to be someone for me. I’ve learned to just give him space to grow. And he’s also taught me how to apologize!
Caiden, how would you describe your mom? And what are your favorite things to do with her?
I think she’s probably one of my best friends ever. I think she loves me even when there’s not enough time. But she makes enough time for me anyway; she does everything she can.
I love to play soccer and go out with her to get coffee or something. And we do a lot with our dog [Seven]. We go on hikes a lot.
Sarah, how have you seen the attitude toward professional athletes who are mothers change?
Back in 2016, my first year as a professional, when I was making $8,000 a year, there was no support or resources for moms. Caiden couldn’t travel to games with me. He wasn’t allowed to. There was no stipend. There was no offering to help with a nanny or anything like that. It was kind of just fend for yourself and make it work.
Fast-forward to now, there are so many more resources. If you are pregnant, you can keep your job, for example, which is really important, and the club will help with doctors and things like that. Obviously, it’s different from club to club, but Angel City is just so supportive of moms and moms-to-be.
We get stipends, they help with nanny allowances… Even your kid can travel with you.
Obviously, there’s more that we want to happen, but where we are right now is just so far from where we were. It’s great to see, but for a few years…, I actually had to grieve seeing moms get all these things. I was happy for them, but I just still had so much pain about what I went through.
How do you take care of you? You’re leading the team and you’re a mother. How do you find space to feed your own core?
I can be a very anxious over-thinker. My first year as a professional, I was anxious on the field. I almost couldn’t even properly play soccer.
And so, I taught myself how to meditate. Every morning, I light my palo santo, I say my little prayer and then I meditate. It has become a space for me to let my mind go wherever it needs to go and give myself space to feel what I need to feel. I feel like that helps me just ground and be present throughout the day.
Your nonprofit work is rooted in wellness. Can you talk a bit about that?
My nonprofit is called HoodSpace, and I created it back when I lived in Chicago in 2020. It’s about bringing yoga, meditation and mindfulness to girls of color.
The pandemic is what inspired me to make it because I felt like it was the time when everyone’s mental health, including my own, was all over the place. I wanted to bring resources to underserved communities and people who might not have access to something as simple as meditation that you don’t actually need anything for. You don’t need a mat, you don’t need a yoga outfit, you can just kind of make that space for yourself.
I just threw a clinic called the Sarah Gorden Soccer Clinic a few weeks ago, and HoodSpace came in and provided yoga and some meditation. Any way I can help people just make a little bit more space for themselves and their feelings, and a little more acceptance for themselves, is the idea behind HoodSpace.
You’re from Chicago, but you’ve been in L.A. for five years now. Does it feel like home yet, or are you still a Chicagoan at heart?
It was a hard transition at first, being away from home and so far from family. But L.A. is where I feel like I established my career and my adult life. And seeing Caiden grow up here and make friends and go to new schools… it really does feel like home to me.
