Welcome back to “I’m Curious!”

It has been a hectic week or so around here. Between a nonstop flow of news and the never-ending selection of Olympic events (including ungodly amounts of curling,) there’s been a lot to take in.

But as the snow melts away, there are signs that the seasons are changing. Baseball players are back at spring training. American soccer is in preseason. Spring, mercifully, is coming.

With that in mind, I had the chance to get back to another season of local soccer coverage, kicking off the 2026 campaign with a stop at Washington Spirit media day. I’ll do my best to see if I can get you a bit more league-wide preview content in a future edition between now and kickoff on March 13^th , but for now, we’ll be taking a look at the hometown team.

On the field, the Spirit are hoping the third time is the charm after back-to-back losses in the NWSL Championship. After a months-long saga involving suitors in the U.S. and Europe, multiple union grievances and a battle between a team and their league, the Spirit re-signed star forward Trinity Rodman to a three-year deal that makes her the highest-paid player in global women’s soccer and in NWSL history.

The club’s offseason moves included another high-dollar deal, as the Spirit paid a reported $950,000, one of the ten highest transfer fees in women’s soccer history, to Paraguayan team Olimpia for 18-year-old forward Claudia Martínez. But it also included a major departure, as the Spirit dealt 2024 NWSL Rookie of the Year and Midfielder of the Year Croix Bethune to the Kansas City Current for $1 million cash, in a deal that occurred at Bethune’s request.

The Spirit are among the NWSL clubs tipped as preseason favorites, including the Current, as well as defending champions Gotham FC and 2024 champions Orlando Pride. 

As we love to do at this here newsletter, we’ll focus on some of the people on the roster, from top to bottom, who each play a role in making the team who it is. And we’ll do it in a handful of snapshots.

From two free agents on two ends of the roster, to the team’s most emotionally expressive player turning to her heart after a big loss, and a player whose biggest breakthroughs on the field came while also studying to be a doctor, there’s plenty of people you’ll want to learn more about.

Don’t hesitate to use the Table of Contents below if you want to jump to a particular story.

Table of Contents

• The Most Curious Thing This Week: Gabrielle Carle, the MCAT, and Being More Than Just a Soccer Player

• My Reporting

  • The Decision: Trinity Rodman Keeps Her Talents in DC

  • The... Other Decision: Kaylie Collins and the Spirit's Invisible Hand

• Other Things of Note

  • Hal Hershfelt: Heart on Her Sleeve

• Something Good I Ate: Carolina Brothers BBQ

But first, before we jump in, here’s Peach! And as a special note, today marks five years to the day since Peach came home from the shelter. We love you, Weechie!

The Most Curious Thing This Week

“Paging Dr. Carle…”

Spirit defender Gabrielle Carle doesn’t want to be stuck as just a soccer player.

But it’s not like she’s bad at it.

She played in the 2024 Olympics for the Canadian national team and then had a breakout 2025 as an outside back for the Spirit.

As a defender, her contributions don’t always show up in the box score, as she had 0 goals or assists last season. But with a team-leading 34 tackles won and as one of just three players with over 2,000 regular season minutes for the Spirit in 2025, Carle put in the kind of season that left her name rarely more than a few words removed from the word “underrated” in articles, podcasts and social media discourse alike.

In the years following the NWSL Players Association’s “No More Side Hustles” campaign, Carle embodies the era where players are paid well enough to have the flexibility to branch out by choice instead of out of necessity.

For three full seasons, she wrote monthly articles in French, her first language, for RDS, the French-Canadian sports channel co-owned by ESPN and Canadian channel CTV. She documented her journey, from being a recent Florida State grad heading to Sweden to play professionally, to joining the Spirit for the 2023 season, through her 2024 campaign, where she played for the Spirit and for Team Canada at the Summer Olympics.

At past media days, she’s regularly had a book in hand.

And ahead of the NWSL Championship last fall, it was a notebook. It had a plain cover, spoiled only by a hand-written inscription on the top corner that said “Biochem.” 

“This is my studying,” she said. “I’m studying for the MCAT.”

“I started studying in January. And I’m taking the test this January.”

During her entire 2025 season, the one where she became a staple on Canadian national team camp rosters and played her way into the Spirit core, she was studying for the MCAT.

In her second language, mind you, since the MCAT is only offered in English. The exam can’t even be offered in her home province of Quebec because of the strict French language law they enacted a few years ago.

Reflecting on it after the fact, she said balancing studying and soccer was helpful on both fronts.

“It was like, a very disciplined time for me last year studying for the MCAT and playing. But it was really nice to just have a second part of me, just me not only being a soccer player, just having that second thing that I was doing.”

(Author’s note: This reporter, who spends the mornings and weekends covering soccer and the afternoons and weeknights covering politics, can relate.) 

And that’s something that’s been on Carle’s mind for a while.

“Soccer is a huge part of my life for me and it’s important, but there’s a reality that I won’t do this forever,” she told me in November.

Retirement age, even by soccer standards, isn’t exactly imminent for the 27-year-old, and she signed an extension that will keep her with the Spirit through the 2029 season, but she said she’s hoping to save the score for down the road.

Most medical schools take MCAT scores from within three years of taking the exam, and some offer an even broader window. Between that and the potential for deferrals, the timeline starts to match up with when soccer careers begin to wind down.

“I would love to do both at the same time but I think it’s highly unrealistic.”

Fast forward to this week and scores are in. 

“It went well,” Carle told me. “Really well.”

I did not ask for the exact number, but “really well” for somebody whose college athlete bio has over a half-dozen different all-academic/scholar-athlete honors and a note at the bottom that she had the highest GPA in her class from 7th through 10th grades is probably better than you’d think.

And she’s not done with letting that second part of herself flourish, already looking to do more .

“I think I’ll try to find something else to do this year. I’m looking into doing medical research, potentially.”

I’m exhausted just thinking about it, but Carle says the Spirit organization has been very supportive.

“I feel like I’m really lucky to be in this environment and it’s giving me so many opportunities,” Carle said. “I spoke to our team doctors, and they were really helpful.”

At this rate, it felt difficult to think of anything she couldn’t try, but talking about the ongoing Winter Olympics, I could see Carle knew her limits, even as a Summer Olympian.

“You do something and like, the grass is always greener somewhere else. So I’m like, ‘what’s it like to be a winter Olympian? Like, what could I do to get into the Winter Olympics?’ I don’t think I could do anything, but I just—it looks so fun.”

I pointed out that some events do pull athletes from other sports and mentioned bobsled. It was clear she had thought of it. 

“I know,” she exclaimed, with an excitement that suggested she was ready to find the nearest track and go sliding down if she could.

“But I don’t think I have the legs for it. Like, unfortunately, I don’t have that kind of power.”

At 5’6” with a slim frame and a playing style defined more by speed and defense than brute strength, Carle has a point. She will have to settle for just one Olympic sport for the time being. 

It takes a particular kind of person to be able to pull off being a jack of all trades. A person needs not just the skills to accomplish many tasks, but also the motivation.

A player like Carle shines on the field, under bright lights and with cameras rolling. But there was one point she made near the end of our chat that felt like it explained how she pulls it all off. 

Back home in the offseason in Quebec, Carle said, she can be totally anonymous. But… when she finds an indoor facility to practice in Quebec’s cold, snowy winters, she realizes how it looks out of context.

“Sometimes I’ll just show up and there’s other people on the other fields. And I’m just running my conditioning and I’m thinking, like, ‘they probably think I’m insane. Like, what is this woman doing?’”

A young woman putting in her full conditioning, doing the work of being an Olympian and a high-level professional soccer player, while studying for the MCAT, getting a score that even she would be happy with, then immediately trying to figure out what to do next. Because journalism and med school prep weren’t enough.

They probably do think she’s insane, even if they know the full story.

But without missing a beat, Carle has a response for that thought.

“This is my life.”

My Reporting

The Decision: Trinity Rodman Keeps Her Talents in DC

After about 15 minutes in a too-small room with too many people and too many cameras for comfort, Trinity Rodman admits she wonders about the biggest decision of her career.

“For me, I go back and forth: ‘Oh, should I have done this, should I have gone overseas or whatever?’”

The Spirit already held the official announcement event with Rodman nearly a month ago. Preseason training is in full swing. And it’s clear in hindsight that it was a close call.

“I've teetered back and forth where I've been so close to being like, ‘OK, I'm going,’ and I'm like, ‘Wait, no, I'm not ready.’”

But her decision is made, and she’s confident it’s a good one.

“I just think there's still more to do, and if I do make a big jump or a big decision like that, I want to feel like I've fully fulfilled what I want to do in DC before I'm bouncing around everywhere.”

There are those letters: DC. Bouncing from question to question from local print and TV reporters alike, Rodman never strayed far from those two all-important, all-powerful letters in this decision.

“Re-signing with Spirit is the best thing ever and I’m excited to stay in my home,” Rodman said, emphasizing the last word.

It took a lot of negotiations in what is inherently a wide-open process, but she can lift the stress of uncertainty off her shoulders.

“I think my heart has been with DC, so the stress of being like, ‘ok, I do truly want to stay in DC,’ so yeah, I’m really happy with that outcome.” 

Entering her sixth pro season, all of which have unfolded with the Spirit, she’s looking for a healthy, consistent campaign after navigating injuries and recovery through many parts of the last two seasons.

“I think I’m just motivated to be on the field as much as I can. I’ve felt really good in national team camp and then coming into preseason.”

The Spirit have proven that they can still win when Rodman is not on the field, as they hung around near the top of the standings even when she dealt with injuries, but her time on the field and with the team will be crucial as the Spirit aim to have their season go to plan.

The… Other Decision: Kaylie Collins and the Spirit’s Invisible Hand

The Spirit signed their star player and invested a significant portion of the money they have under the salary cap into her. But the Spirit had two free agents to sign—their star forward Trinity Rodman, yes, but also their backup goalkeeper, Kaylie Collins.

The 27-year-old keeper is entering her sixth NWSL season after three seasons in Orlando, a partial-season loan in Australia, and a brief stop in Seattle before joining the Spirit in 2024. But, as is prone to happen at the goalkeeper position, Collins has played in just one league game (plus two non-league Challenge Cup games.) She’s not always rostered for games as she seems to have settled into the third goalkeeper role behind starter Aubrey Kingsbury and primary backup Sandy MacIver. 

The question of whether she’d have a roster spot in 2026 was a very different one for her than for a star with a multimillion-dollar salary like Rodman.

“We finished the season. I wasn’t really sure what it was going to look like,” Collins said.

“But after talking to the club, it felt like there was still a place for me and still more to learn and get out of it.”

Collins suggested that, during her brief free agency, other options may have appeared here and there, but that it’s a part of the process.

“Things happen really quickly here, so like, you’ll have that soft looking, talking to people,” Collins said, “but it happens very fast.”

Like with Rodman, beyond just the chance to do more, a love for DC made the decision easy.

“I love the Spirit, I love DC, so it was nice to be back.”

And of course, there was the relief of avoiding a move.

“The moving piece was terrifying me. I was like, I need to figure this out so I don’t have to move.”

Collins returning to the Spirit serves as a testament to just how holistic roster selection can often be.

Even at a position like goalkeeper, where one player can often play every single minute of a season, depth can be so important to promote a culture off the field that leads to success on the field. 

Collins, for her part, said a good 2026 for her would include taking every opportunity to support the team in whatever ways they need. Places like training…

“I think if you are bringing an energy to training that’s intense and like, you’re pushing yourself, inevitably you’re helping the team. You’re inevitably pushing everyone around you.”

…or the occasional emotional support coffee…

“I like to make coffee, so when someone’s having a hard day, I always have people over for coffee and like, getting to chat.”

…or even the Spirit fantasy football league, which we covered in Edition 33… which she won in a bit of a Cinderella run.

“I didn’t look at it for a good two or three weeks, and then all of a sudden I looked at it and I was like, ‘Kaylie, you need to lock in, because you’re close to winning.’”

She did, beating defender and noted Jacksonville Jaguars superfan Esme Morgan and her Jags-heavy team in the league final.

Collins getting into a game this season may not be a guarantee. Fans may not see her making an impact between the lines. But so long as Collins is on the Spirit roster, it’s a certainty that she’ll be making a difference.

Other Things of Note

Hal Hershfelt: Heart on Her Sleeve

The last time we saw midfielder Hal Hershfelt in a Spirit uniform, it was as she hobbled off on crutches into the tunnel after the Spirit lost the NWSL Championship. It was a limping Hershfelt who head coach Adrián González could not substitute out of the game in time before Gotham midfielder Rose Lavelle scored the championship-winning goal late in November’s title game.

The agonizing result overshadowed a career game from the defensive midfielder, and one that opened the door to her playing for the U.S. women’s national team in their January friendlies.

With time to reflect and reset, Hershfelt told me that she took a different approach from her last offseason.

After the 2024 season, there was learning to do, with lots of training.

Not after 2025. This time around, the Spirit’s most visibly expressive player, the openly beating heart of the team, took a more heart-centered approach.

“This time I was like, no, I’m not doing anything. I just took care of myself, rehabbed my ankle and spent time with my family and my friends and my partner.”

Yes, you heard that right. Partner!

Prior to a December post on social media, Hershfelt wasn’t particularly public about anybody else being in her life. But to me at least, it made me think about how times have changed.

A generation ago, coming out, in sports or otherwise, was very different. In 1997, Ellen DeGeneres needed a whole TIME magazine cover that had a pic of her and the headline “Yep, I’m Gay.” Even in 2012, soccer star Megan Rapinoe did a sit-down interview with Out magazine. And when NBA player Jason Collins became the first active male athlete in a major pro sports league to come out back in 2013, it came with a cover story and photo spread in Sports Illustrated.

That’s a lot of attention, good, bad and in between. And a lot of pressure just to announce a relationship or even just describe the type of person who you might date someday.

Now, as it becomes more common and more socially accepted, there’s less fanfare. It’s still worth celebrating, but in a sign of progress, it doesn’t have to be the same sort of “stop the presses” news that it used to be.

24-year-old WNBA star Paige Bueckers and her girlfriend, UConn star Azzi Fudd, did it through gags here and there: Fudd posting on Instagram with a phone case that said “Paige Bueckers’ Girlfriend,” Bueckers doing an interview video where she was quizzed on facts about her “D1 Girlfriend.”

And then there’s Hershfelt, who hard-launched her relationship with her partner, Chicago Stars goalkeeper Halle Mackiewicz, with little more than an Instagram carousel of photos including several of the two of them together and a caption featuring a love letter emoji. The comments from teammates and opponents alike, covering the range of every heart-adjacent emoji you can think of, filled in the rest of the gaps.

“We’ve been together for a really long time,” Hershfelt said. “So it was just like, ‘whatever, it’s about time. It’s the holidays.’”

Before you go making “Heated Rivalry” references, though, these two had plenty of time on the same team, with five years at Clemson.

“She was my teammate in college so it’s like, we’re just used to the whole soccer environment and everything,” Hershfelt said.

Even operating long-distance, it means that a couple of matchups on the calendar are special.

“Playing against her, I mean, it’s not really that hard because she gets to visit. So I’m like, ‘woo! Love when we play Chicago!’”

Whether it’s Chicago or any of the other fourteen NWSL teams the Spirit will face both at home and on the road, the third-year midfielder is ready for what comes, and she mentioned how some very different types of relationships will be key.

“We lost some people in the midfield but I feel like just working on that fluidity with the people that we do have, and kind of working off of each other and maintaining those relationships, I think that will be really important.”

Helping matters will be the return of her fellow defensive midfielder Andi Sullivan, who is on her way back from maternity leave and an ACL tear. The two played side by side in a double defensive midfielder setup for many stretches in 2024 before Sullivan’s injury.

“She’s coming back and I think that will be great, kind of firing up that old partnership again.”

Something Good I Ate

I do not have any pictures, but I want to give a shoutout to Carolina Brothers, a barbecue spot in Ashburn, VA, where I often stop for lunch after covering Spirit trainings.

They know their way around pulled pork, a personal favorite of mine. Theirs comes with a tangy, vinegary and even somewhat spicy flavor, and a sauce that is thin and clear.

It’s easy to balance it out with their rich, sweet baked beans. I’m not sure if “candied” is the right word for them but they strike just the right balance between sweet and smoky, and it’s served in a thick sauce, and it’s exactly what I want alongside that tangy pulled pork sandwich.

And when the flavors are too much, their potato salad cools things off but has a flavor that’s softened compared to many other ones I’ve tried elsewhere. While many places have potato salads that confront you with how harshly dull a potato can be, that’s not a problem here.

The drive is long, the tolls are annoying and the weather can often be bad, but after covering a training, Carolina Brothers is hard to beat.

Just a note: Any work here or opinions I express are solely mine, and do not reflect the views of my employer, my coworkers, or anybody else affiliated with me. The newsletter is not monetized in any way and everything in here is written and reported with my own resources on my own time outside of my working hours unless specifically noted otherwise. “I’m Curious” is just for me, the author, and for you, the reader. Thank you for reading. I’m glad you’re here.