Pam Copple

I began my soccer journey in the 1970s when I started coaching one of my daughters and realized I needed to learn the game properly, so I went straight to work with the Seattle Sounders to teach me. Through that connection, which I maintained for many years, I did camps and learned along the way, progressing from the association level to district level to state level, holding VP positions for a couple years before being elected president. I became the first woman and the only woman ever to become president of Washington State Youth Soccer, which is a sore spot with me that no other woman has held that position since. As the only woman on the executive board and in charge, I had to learn how to be independent and fight my own battles. I developed a strategy of calling the spouses of the men working under me first to take myself out of the threat and build friendships with their wives, which gave me the support I needed to work effectively with the men. In 1993, I started the only risk management program in the soccer world, the Child Protection Kids Safe program, and traveled the country teaching it with my committee in Dallas. I was fortunate to have some guys working with me who liked me and worked with me rather than against me, and together we put together a wonderful program and fought our battles in states that didn't want to be changed. I served at the regional and national levels simultaneously, working with both U.S. Soccer and U.S. Youth Soccer. I was historian for United States Youth Soccer for 25-30 years and served on the Hall of Fame Committee for over 20 years until last year. In my corporate career, I worked in the insurance business for about 22 years, working my way up to Regional Underwriting Coordinator covering 5 states, where I was sent all over the place. Before that, I was a buyer for Barmie Marchaise handling televisions and appliances, and I worked at the University of California at Berkeley after high school. I'm now retired and staying connected with soccer legends like Michelle Akers, Joy Fawcett, and Lauren Gregg, and I even put their kids on my son-in-law's fishing boats in Alaska. I'm currently traveling with my daughters once a year to show them where I was raised so they can learn who I was.