It's always interesting to me how our perceptions of people, when those perceptions are shaped and filtered by media, can be so different from the impressions we get when we actually meet someone in the flesh.
Hope Solo the monster didn't show up. Hope Solo the bad teammate didn't show up. Hope Solo the spoiled, the egotistical, the selfish, the unsportsmanlike, the bad role model, all of which we heard about her during and after the World Cup fiasco.. well, none of them showed up.
She was patient, friendly, cheerful, honest, willing to share some of the behind-the-scenes moments of the World Cup, willing to talk about the melt-down and coach call-out and the dark months that followed and about her current determination to move on with her life and her career. She was a bit cocky, yes, but I found that refreshing and after all what world class athlete isn't just a bit cocky?
Hope and I were joined by her Husky coaches from her collegiate years, Leslie Gallimore and Amy Griffin, on a freezing, fairly damp, blustery morning just perfect for banging a few balls around and talking soccer. The games we played and the chats we had will be used in bits and pieces as the basis of news stories from now until the Beijing Olympics. Hope has a lot to say and she says it very well. There is a direct and open quality to her interview and an interesting energy and edge to her personality that will simply be good copy. And we'll need a lot of copy!
Barring injury or weird political games Hope should be the starting goalie for the Olympic team. The soccer competition actually begins before the opening ceremonies and runs nearly the entire length of the Games, so get set to hear plenty about her this winter, through the spring and next summer.
214 days to go.