Washington Spirit's Newest Good Luck Charm? Jose the Coyote

Author’s Note: This is a special single-feature version of the newsletter. Just one story in here today, but the full format will return soon, likely next week.

At training for the Washington Spirit on Tuesday, there was a foreboding presence along the sideline.

As players went through their drills, he was watching, unmoving, without so much as blinking.

Nothing could derail him from the task at hand.

Because he is made of plastic.

The new star of the show in Washington takes no salary cap space, isn’t human and is completely inanimate.

Meet Jose the Coyote.

Somehow, Jose has become both their dead-eyed good luck charm and a reminder to the club to have fun at their jobs.

So how on Earth is it possible that a two-and-a-half-foot-tall decoy meant to scare off the likes of coyotes and geese could help turn a pro soccer team’s season around?

As strange of an example Jose might be, he follows a long line of good luck charms that sports teams have adopted in an effort to replicate an environment that brought success as closely as possible.

Sometimes it’s a song—if you’re the St. Louis Blues, for example, you hear Laura Branigan’s “Gloria” in a bar and decide to play it before every game. Before you know it, you’re riding something that they said and all the voices in your head all the way to a Stanley Cup. 

Sometimes it’s a person—if you’re Loyola Chicago’s men’s basketball team, you might keep a nun nearing her 100^th birthday on the bench as your chaplain while you make a Cinderella run to the Final Four.

And sometimes, it’s an inanimate object—the suddenly resurgent Pittsburgh Pirates have had a hot start this season, after players on the longtime MLB doormat saw that league merchandise provider Fanatics had released t-shirts that, instead of saying the pirate-themed phrase “hoist the colors,” said “hoist the cone.”

As the Pirates celebrate home runs and other big moments, they have carried around an orange traffic cone, often hoisting it above their heads, as the shirt commands.

The story of how Jose came to the Spirit goes back to earlier this month and the club’s road trip to San Jose to play Bay FC. A talented but scuffling Spirit team was on the brink of heading into the international break winless through their first five games. 

But on a practice field at San Jose State University the day before the game, Spirit midfielders Hal Hershfelt and Rebeca Bernal saw plastic coyotes scattered around the grass. Neither of them were familiar with decoy coyotes or had any idea why they were there.

“We had just never seen one before, and Rebe is scared of dogs, so we just picked one up and started messing with it,” Hershfelt told me.

It became part of their small-sided games, a series of fairly informal but highly competitive showdowns in their trainings the day before each match. 

@katrab7

Jose the coyote was brought into this world via lots of giggles 😂 @hal #washingtonspirit

It quickly became a trophy of sorts for the winning small-side teams. Hershfelt told me her team won before immediately correcting herself.

“I don’t even think we won, actually. I think we were just being stupid,” she said while stifling laughter.

As it turns out, one of her bosses was watching, and was inspired after the Spirit notched a 2-0 win in a game they largely dominated to make a different sort of transaction than you usually see from a soccer team.

“I scoured the internet and Amazon to find ‘coyote decoy,’ and then had it delivered to the training facility so that it would be available when everybody was back,” said Spirit president of soccer operations Haley Carter.

And with that, the Washington Spirit acquired an unnamed decoy coyote from Amazon for a reported $90 transfer fee.

Upon his arrival to his new club, the coyote, a Master Series Lone Hunter made by the Ohio-based Flambeau Outdoors, was given a new name: Jose, to honor his plastic compatriots who the Spirit met on the training field in San Jose. 

Hershfelt, ever the content creator, filmed herself building Jose, screwing on his legs and making sure he could stand. In a video she posted to TikTok, she explained a crucial advantage Jose has over his brethren.

“This guy is better because the one on their field had, like, a rusty stake coming out of it. This one doesn’t have tetanus, so that’s good,” she said. 

@halhershh

You never know what’s happening in someone else’s lockeroom fr #nwsl #washingtondc #womeninsports #athlete

Since then, Jose has mostly remained in the locker room, but still makes the occasional trip out. For Tuesday’s open training, Bernal carried him onto the field and left him on the sideline to watch the club train. 

Hershfelt said he has even played a role in a couple of pranks.

“The other day, someone threw it in one of the bathroom stalls, so that they would be scared when whoever came into the bathroom the next day opened it up.”

It hits on an aspect that team culture that both players and management alike have sought to improve on in 2026: having fun.

Carter said it came up before the game against Bay in her meeting with club leadership.

“We had a conversation about, ‘are we not having fun because we’re not winning or are we not winning because we’re not having fun?’,” Carter told me.

“When you’re not getting the results, you tend to get really tense and there’s a pressure associated with that, and you look at how incredible this roster is and how committed they are to winning, how much they hate to lose, and you can, like, sense the tension.” 

There was, in essence, a hole in the Spirit’s work process, and it happened to be plastic coyote-shaped.

Carter saw it as an absurd example of how to foster a meaningful shift in how the team approaches their work.

“On a serious note, for me, finding ways for our athletes to have outlets, finding ways for our staff to have outlets, creating a space where we aren’t taking ourselves too seriously is really important, because the positive effects of giving athletes and staff those outlets and reinforcing that we can’t take ourselves too seriously, because we have the best job in the world, is really important. And if we get too wrapped up in the wins, losses, performances, we start to lose sight of the other things and the process.”

Players, too, echoed the thought that building positivity can make a big difference.

Spirit forward Trinity Rodman, fresh off a stint with the U.S. women’s national team, cited the national team as a model for how joy can fuel player and team success.

“I know it sounds so stupid and so simple, but you see it with the national team. Like, we’re having the best time ever. We’re smiling 24/7, and to incorporate fun things and positivity within everything we do makes us better players and makes us more comfortable to be ourselves.” 

Hershfelt acknowledged that, despite a less-than-stellar start to the Spirit’s season, a little gag like Jose can keep the team smiling and play at least a small role in building connections that eventually show up on the field.

“The season’s obviously so long. You go through so many ups and downs,” Hershfelt said. “Just adding fun, little light touches to whatever we’re doing, whether it’s, like, coffee reviews or going on little walks together as a team on away trips, or like a dumb decoy coyote, it’s just keeping it light.”

With three matches in the first week-and-a-half out of the international break and a road trip that will take them to two West Coast cities and Mexico, there will likely be no shortage of ups and downs for the club.

Carter told me they do plan to bring Jose to Audi Field.

Road games may be a challenge, however.

“We’ll see how it goes,” Carter said. “Somebody’s going to walk through TSA with him. I don’t know about that. Does he go in a carry on? Overhead bin? I don’t know, we’ll see.”

It will be a long journey this season for the Spirit no matter what. The challenges may come from other teams, inside the team… and possibly even from the TSA.

Through it all, the team will have to do their best to have fun while navigating an incredibly wide range of emotions.

Well… most of the team.

Jose will be having fun, but unlike his teammates, he won’t have to deal with any emotions.

He’ll just be standing there. Not blinking. Not moving. Just watching.

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