The story behind USWNT’s coach at the Olympics, Emma Hayes

Emma Hayes did not need any introduction when she arrived in New York in May for her much-anticipated unveiling as the new head coach of the U.S. women’s national team.

Hayes has long been considered one of the best coaches in the world. She has backed that up with 16 trophies in 12 years at Chelsea FC, the English club she led from relative obscurity to a global leader in the women’s game during that span.

Hayes is also a larger-than-life personality, someone who commands respect whether she’s in a ballroom full of other coaches or surrounded by executives. She casually recounts memories and conversations with coaches ranging from Sir Alex Ferguson and Jurgen Klopp, to basketball icon Dawn Staley.

The USWNT has always featured an abundance of global stars, but there’s a legitimate argument that right now, in this moment of transition to a new generation of players yet to win anything, that Hayes is the biggest name on the squad.

“I mean, come on, you’re never going to get anyone with a personality like me,” she joked to a small group of reporters in May.

Like everyone who reaches such heights, Hayes was a nobody at some point.

The coach, who has become known over the course of her career for tactical flexibility, introspective answers to the media and a ruthless desire to win, speaks often about how she was “born in England, but made in America.”

Hayes’ coaching career started in earnest in 2001, a short drive from the Manhattan meeting room where she held court on this warm May afternoon. She worked at summer youth camps on Long Island, where she soon latched on as a coach of an amateur team before coaching at Iona.

“I remember those days fighting to stay in the country on different visas, wondering if I’m going to get enough to pay the rent in the next upcoming block, to what am I going to do next?” she recalled as she thought about stepping off the plane in May as the new coach of the world’s most storied women’s soccer team.

Those who observed her rise over the past two decades and remained in touch through the years describe a common theme of a determined coach whose personality has not changed. It is that spirit that Hayes, the U.S. Soccer Federation, and millions of fans hope will revive a team that has fallen behind its global rivals. That task begins at this summer’s Olympics.

Hayes’ journey to this point is decades in the making.

Fighting for visas and making the most of it

Twenty-three years later, Kim Wyant still vividly remembers the day she met Hayes.

Wyant, who was the starting goalkeeper for the USWNT in the program’s inaugural match, in 1985, was helping run camps and clinics for the Long Island Lady Riders. The Lady Riders were a rare club at the turn of the century because they had a full pyramid of girls and women’s teams, right up to a USL W-League amateur squad, the highest level of women’s soccer prior to the launch of WUSA in 2001.

As the story goes, Wyant was training goalkeepers on a nearby field in Stony Brook, New York, one day when over her shoulder she heard a woman’s voice instructing a group of boys. Wyant had been on Long Island for a few years at this point after relocating from Florida, and what she could hear in the background on this day was unique. She needed to know more.

“I was literally being distracted from coaching the goalkeepers because I’m listening to this woman coach who clearly knew what she was doing,” Wyant told ESPN. “It was organized, she was a strong voice. She looked like she was having fun with the kids. And I was like, ‘Who is this woman that is like standing on the soccer field at Stony Brook? Who is she and how come I don’t know who she is? Because I know everybody.'”

The woman was Hayes. She had come to the United States with a one-way ticket and $1,000 to travel the country instructing community-level Major League Soccer Camps, hosted in MLS markets, in the 2000s as that men’s league attempted to find its own foundation.

Wyant invited Hayes to chat so she could get to know her better, and the leaders of the Long Island Lady Riders were impressed enough that they carved out a creative role from a limited budget to hire Hayes.

“Her job was 90% training, working camps, getting out in the community, doing stuff in the front office to help us generate revenue, and like 10% of her other responsibility was to coach the W-League team,” Wyant said.

That 10% went a long way. Hayes, who was only 25 at the time, was named USL W-League coach of the year in 2002, leading the team to the top of the Eastern Conference with 11 wins from 14 games. The W-League season was short — it was essentially a summer league for top U.S. players — but Hayes did enough to capture the attention of some local coaching circles. Her name eventually landed on the desk of Shawn Brennan, who was the athletic director at Iona in 2003.

Brennan was in search of a new women’s soccer coach. Iona is not a soccer school, and Brennan admits he was the furthest thing from a soccer guy. Iona is best known as a men’s basketball school and the foundation of another famous coaching career: Jim Valvano — “Jimmy V” — coached at Iona in the late 1970s before more famously guiding North Carolina State to its glory era, including a national championship in 1983.

Valvano coined the phrase, “Dare to Dream,” which guided different aspects of athletic life at Iona for the decades to follow. Brennan said the phrase is slightly coded: Effectively, “you have to be a little bit off-center to get it done at Iona.” Coaches also had fewer resources.

The women’s coaching job would only pay $30,000 annually. Hayes did not get an office — she sat in a common area referred to as “the bullpen” with all the other coaches. Field availability was a juggling act between the men’s and women’s soccer programs and the football team.

Hayes didn’t care. She took the job and, she admits now, didn’t even get paid at first in exchange for Iona’s help in securing her a work visa. Brennan, who now works in the office of development & alumni relations at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, said Hayes focused on the positives, using the bullpen to absorb information from other successful coaches.

“She had a plan,” Brennan said. “She never complained about anything. She just came into work every day and, you know, I never would have thought it would have led to this. I can’t say I was a great visionary that said she’s going to be this unbelievable, smashing coach at some point, but I knew that she had the chops to, as Jim Valvano would say, dare to dream and get something going with the program there. And that’s exactly what she did.”

Hayes won the 2004 MAAC Coach of Year award in just her second season. Her 22 victories are the most for any coach in a three-year period, according to Iona, and Hayes still has the best overall winning percentage of any coach in Iona women’s soccer history.

Her 22-29-6 record over three seasons at a mid-major college hardly screamed “future USWNT coach” to the rest of the world, but at Iona, Hayes proved to herself as much as anyone that her methodology worked.

Stepping up to the big leagues

Peter Wilt still remembers meeting Hayes for the first time. Wilt, one of the founding co-owners and the first president of the Chicago Red Stars, joined general manager Marcia McDermott for a dinner with Hayes in Baltimore around the annual soccer coaching convention in 2008.

McDermott had recommended Hayes as a candidate for the first head-coaching job in Red Stars history ahead of the launch of WPS. The pair knew each other well — Wilt went in blind. Immediately, however, he was struck by Hayes’ charisma and knowledge of the game.

“She was Emma,” Wilt told ESPN recently, a phrase that resonates with anyone who has met Hayes.

From there, it became more of a “recruiting process,” Wilt said. After departing Iona following the 2005 season, Hayes went back to England to work as an assistant with Arsenal at the height of the Gunners’ glory. They won the quadruple in 2006-07, conquering England and Europe.

Wilt and McDermott had work to do to sell Hayes on joining a new franchise in a league yet to play a match, so Hayes flew to Chicago to get a feel for both the city and the organization. Wilt & Co. showed her around, including Toyota Park (now SeatGeek Stadium), which was relatively new at the time. Hayes shared her passion for things beyond soccer, which included a love for the Pogues, a Celtic punk band. Wilt happened to know that the Pogues were in town that weekend playing at Chicago’s Riviera Theatre, and he secured a couple of tickets that he would like to think helped convince Hayes.

She soon took the job and quickly integrated into Chicago life. Hayes could often be found at the Globe Pub watching games and talking about Tottenham.

“She became part of the fabric of the soccer community in Chicago, more so than a lot of coaches who’ve spent more time there,” said Wilt, who has launched several pro soccer teams in the U.S. and has deep ties to Chicago. “And that’s just who she is; it’s her natural personality.”

At Hayes’ disposal in Chicago was a litany of recognizable names, some of whom were in or past their primes and others who were yet to reach them: Megan Rapinoe, Carli Lloyd, Cristiane, Lindsay Tarpley, and Karen Carney among them. Still, the Red Stars finished sixth in the seven-team league, with 20 points from 20 games.

This is the now famous part of Hayes’ journey, the setback that shaped the years to come: five games into the season, with a record of 1-3-1, she was fired as the Red Stars’ head coach.

“I learned that you don’t get time,” Hayes told “Men in Blazers” during a 2022 podcast appearance. “You don’t have that time. You don’t get the opportunity and the foundation to build something. You have to win now.”

Hayes stayed involved in the game in the U.S. after being sacked by Chicago. She joined the Washington Freedom as a consultant late in 2010. Then, she worked in London as the technical director of the Western New York Flash, helping the team identify and develop talent. That 2011 squad included Marta, Christine Sinclair, and a rookie named Alex Morgan.

When the star-studded Flash won the WPS title that August, Hayes was there in Rochester, New York — and then, as night turned to morning, in Buffalo to celebrate. She was a small part of what ended up being the final trophy handed out by that league. She wasn’t on the sidelines, however, and it was unclear when she might get another opportunity to be there.

Hayes returned to London and stepped away from soccer to help run and modernize her father’s currency exchange business. She was at an inflection point — though clearly a talented coach, she had long been more than that. She admires the arts and sociology. Hayes had also previously dreamed of being a spy; she has a master’s degree in intelligence and international affairs.

Soccer and coaching still beckoned, however. She became head coach of Chelsea in late 2012. While the men’s team had been prolific in the 2000s, winning several league titles, domestic cups and the UEFA Champions League, the women’s team had never won a top-flight league title nor a cup.

After finishing seventh and second in her first two seasons, Hayes steered Chelsea to the club’s first Women’s Super League (WSL) title in 2015. The Blues have won seven total in the time since (plus another title in an abbreviated 2017 season), including the last five straight — all under Hayes.

Kelly Cousins, sporting director for Utah Royals FC, was the manager of Reading when she and Hayes squared off on the final day of the 2022-23 season. A win would clinch Chelsea another title while also guaranteeing relegation for Reading, a team in a dire financial situation.

For Cousins, the professional nadir was accompanied by a personal moment that strengthened her bond with Hayes. The two had already grown close as two moms working through coaching in the top flight, but the dichotomy of their matchup on the final day of the WSL season depicted the personal-professional balance.

“She just kept saying, ‘Kelly, I can’t do this,'” Cousins told ESPN. “I was like, ‘Emma, it’s just football. It is what it is. We’re only here because of the state of the club [Reading] we’re in.’ But she was truly heartbroken that day. She had mixed emotions; obviously she won the league, but [sad] for me personally.”

Chelsea dominated the domestic game in England under Hayes and grew to become one of the top destinations in the world. A European title eluded Hayes, however. They made the UEFA Women’s Champions League final once, in 2021, when they were throttled by Barcelona, 4-0.

The Champions League trophy was the one piece of silverware that Hayes didn’t win with Chelsea. Her last shot came this year. In a perfect world, Hayes hoped to win the that title and fly to the U.S. a few days later to start her new role, but Chelsea’s historic win at Camp Nou in the first leg of the semifinals in May was for naught after a 2-0 loss at Stamford Bridge in the second leg. Barcelona went on to win a second straight Champions League title, their third overall.

The USWNT call

Lisa Cole was sitting in Hayes’ house in England the day the phone rang. U.S. Soccer wanted Hayes to fly to New York for an interview for the vacant USWNT head-coaching job, the gig that Hayes had promised her dying father, Sid, she would go after if the opportunity came.

Not long after her father’s funeral, Hayes flew to interview for the position. Cole, a longtime friend, stayed behind to watch Hayes’ now 6-year-old son, Harry, and was still there a few weeks later when the call came from U.S. Soccer sporting director Matt Crocker that he wanted Hayes to be the 10th full-time head coach of the USWNT.

Cole and Hayes met on a field in Rhode Island during an Olympic Developmental Program camp a couple decades ago, in those formative years of each of their coaching careers. Cole, like Wyant, worked with the goalkeepers and also remembers how Hayes was different. She wouldn’t just drop off the goalkeepers for position-specific training, but integrated the position into drills and provided feedback to them as she would field players.

This has long been one of Hayes’ special talents: a holistic view of her operation. According to Cole, Hayes knows great tactics mean less without the rest: sports science, medical, operations.

“Her ability to connect those two things, I think, is what has made her a bit remarkable, and also gets real buy-in from players,” Cole said. “I think they feel cared for and listened to, and when she asks them to do something, I think they feel that it’s not just an opinion. It’s something that’s been backed by who they personally are.”

Hayes jokes that people tell her “I bring an army with me” when her staff arrives for games. She established that deep, detailed staff at Chelsea, and brought several of those people with her — including assistant Denise Reddy — to the USWNT job.

Cole is currently with the team as part of Hayes’ staff for the Olympics. Technically, Cole oversees player scouting for youth national teams, but her deep knowledge of Hayes — and Hayes’ trust of her — meant she was a must.

Reddy has been Hayes’ assistant for what seems like forever, from those difficult days in Chicago — Reddy picked up Hayes from a coffee shop after she got fired and then walked into the Red Stars’ offices and quit in solidarity, Hayes revealed in her book, “Kill the Unicorn” — to Chelsea and now the USWNT. Several other former Chelsea staffers, ranging in roles from coaching to operations, also made the move to the USWNT.

Nobody who has known Hayes through the years is surprised that she is now the coach of the four-time World Cup champions and four-time Olympic gold medalists, but everyone around her is also quick to clarify that they take no credit for Hayes’ journey. That, they say, has been one of self-making.

“It was our dream,” Cole says now, thinking back to those anonymous fields in Rhode Island. “We often talk about this: it doesn’t work out for everybody. So no, I wouldn’t have said, ‘Oh, Emma’s going to be the next national team coach,’ but I could see the potential in her. I knew she was going to go do great things in the game.”