September 24, 2004

FIRST NIGHT BACK

Tonight is our first night back for a national team game, and it is like going to summer camp. We all danced around in the hallway, ran in and out of each other's rooms, shared photos from the Olympics. Angela Hucles took all of her videotapes and made a DVD, which is absolutely priceless. Scott Street, our massage therapist, did the same thing, only with still photos, but from the whole year, which is truly amazing.

A group of us outside the Athens Olympic Sports Complex. (Trainer Cody Malley, Kritin Luckenbill, Lindsay Tarpley, Cindy Parlow, trainer Julie O'Connell Abby Wambach and me.

With Mia Hamm in the locker room after the Gold medal game. That's Heather Mitts and Aly Wagner in the background.

Sometimes, when you are in the middle of things, you can lose your focus or take things for granted, but these photos and the DVD reminds us of those good times and why we have been successful for so long. There are always smiles, hugs, group pictures. I look forward to putting new photos in frames and hanging them on my wall. (Enclosed are two from the Games...one in the locker room after the Gold Medal game, and the other at the Athens Olympic Sport Complex, or OAKA.)

So tonight it was great to sit in the dining room, having dinner, talking to one another about what we have all been doing. Then coach got up and said a few things about what a good year it was, 20-1-3. And how Brazil hadn't been scored upon by anyone else in the Olympics besides us, 4 precisely. We all were impressed with those two points. We don't ever focus on those types of things specifically because it can get in the way, but they are interesting to look at after things are completed.

So, tomorrow begins a whole new year, and the focus is on not only enjoying these Fan Appreciation games, but looking at the next big event three years from now, the 5th Women's World Cup in China.

Brandi