Story by Ryan Heller
Photo by Brad Smith/isiphotos
Emily Fox paused as the soccer ball rolled to her feet.
With her North Carolina Tar Heels down 1-0 late in the first half of the NCAA Tournament Quarterfinals, Fox juked to the left of a Southern California defender, darted into the box and struck the ball into the right bottom corner of the goal.
She created a moment of glory on her own – in front of her parents, grandparents, aunt and uncle.
That Dec. 10 match would showcase her last moment of greatness of the 2019 season.
Later in that game, an opposing attacker hit Fox from behind, causing her knee to bend awkwardly. She remained in pain on the ground for nearly three minutes, trying to wipe away tears as an athletic trainer attended to her.
“I knew when it happened,” Leslie Fox said. “I knew that it was her ACL and I cried. As her mom, I was completely devastated.”
In the locker room, Emily sat on a physio table with crutches by her side and a large bag of ice on her left knee until her teammates ran in to embrace her after a 3-2 victory.
“She was so happy for the team,” friend and former UNC teammate Laura Sparling said. “That was the only thing that she cared about at that moment, not herself. It’s typical of Fox to be the most selfless person in the room.”
The joy she felt from her peers masked the devastation of the second ACL tear of her college career. While the injury gave her more attention than she probably wanted, she knew her soccer journey was far from over.
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Growing up in Ashburn, Virginia, Fox followed a path common for kids in her area, picking up soccer before the age of 5. But she was also a runner and a gymnast using her athleticism, speed and endurance to excel in each sport.
“When she was younger, she would run in all of these 5k races, and she would beat all the adults because at the end, she just never ran out of gas,” her mother said.
While she enjoyed gymnastics, when she approached middle school, the time commitment conflicted too much with her travel soccer. She had to choose.
“It was a really easy choice,” Fox said. “Soccer is more of a team sport, and I just fell in love with the team aspect of it and having people around to support me and me to support other people.”
Fox dealt with local doubters, who questioned whether her game was good enough to transcend beyond the youth levels.
“People would say ‘You’re just athletic and fast. That’s why you’re good.’” Leslie Fox said. “And it really bothered her, so she worked and worked to let people know that she is a good, technical soccer player. That has always been something that has been important to her.”
She used her critics as motivation. In 2015, she was named to the U.S. youth national team for the CONCACAF Women’s U-20 Championship. She also played in the 2016 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup.
By her senior year in high school, Fox took classes while on the road with the U.S. women’s national soccer team and graduated a semester early. But she did fly home to attend her prom, salvaging some normalcy.
Her next stop was Chapel Hill and one of the top collegiate women’s soccer programs in the country.
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Fox came to North Carolina with a big soccer reputation. Her national team experience and a fantastic one year of high school soccer – earning a spot on the All-State and All-Metropolitan teams – made her a sought-after recruit.
“You would expect her to have this cockiness to her, but she really doesn’t,” friend and former North Carolina teammate Miah Araba said. “Meeting her for the first time is kind of like ‘Wow, that’s Emily Fox!’ But once you get to know her, you learn that she’s the nicest person ever.”
Commonly addressed as “Foxy,” she became the calming influence for her more stressed-out companions. She was the first to encourage them after getting over a tough week of practice and the confidence booster when Araba and Sparling were anxiously applying to graduate schools.
She took time to invite her Tar Heel teammates to coffee or lunch. As a senior, she’d text freshmen to initiate dinner plans, so she could engage with them on a personal level.
“She just really wants you to feel seen and make sure that you feel valued and important,” Sparling said.
But when she was on the field, Fox showcased her flashiness. She displayed a repertoire of finesse moves, including the nutmeg. Several times a match she slipped the ball in between the legs of a defender and it didn’t matter if it was right in the midfield or right in front of her own goal. She also could gracefully dribble the full length of a soccer field and lead offensive attacks despite typically playing on defense during college.
“She has this sort of swagger about her the way she plays with the ball and the way she’ll tease you and basically, try to make you look silly on the field, which is just terrible for the opposing team,” Sparling said.
But when the final whistle blew, she didn’t want praise for her maneuvers. She hated having conversations about herself. She’d rather celebrate with her teammates in the locker room – even an ACL tear won’t change that.
“Even with all of her success, she is incredibly humble,” Araba said. “She doesn’t let her success, like, give her the pedestal that a lot of people do.”
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Fox suffered her first ACL tear as a freshman due to a misstep on a turf field just 12 minutes into a 2017 win against Boston College. She missed the final nine games of the season, including a national championship appearance – one the Tar Heels would lose.
“That was really the first time I’d ever had a serious injury or had a surgery,” Fox said. “So the first one was very much a shock.”
She returned before the beginning of her sophomore season and got back in the USWNT picture. On Nov. 8, 2018, she made her first senior national team appearance and was in the starting lineup as an outside defender.
During her third USWNT appearance and first in 2019, midfielder Delphine Cascarino beat her to the ball, leading to a France goal within 10 minutes of game action. One costly error and Fox was benched just over halfway into the match. She didn’t play another minute for the national team for the rest of the year and when the ACL in her other leg gave out on Dec. 10, her chances of making the roster in 2020 ended.
Fox was at the top of her game, before Dec. 10. She was a semifinalist for the Hermann Trophy, given to the top female college soccer player, and she helped North Carolina finish the regular season ranked second in the country. Her knee injury forced her to miss another championship game, which also ended in a UNC defeat.
“One mistake happens and then the ACL tear occurs,” her longtime trainer Harry Opoku said. “She really has gone through things that not that many footballers can overcome, but she did overcome it because she’s determined.”
She remained confident she’d be able to suit up again at full strength, working individually with Greg Gatz, UNC’s director of strength and conditioning for Olympic sports.
“She’s not a flamboyant person, by any means,” Gatz said. “She sticks to herself. She is in a position where she likes training by herself sometimes because she’s very dedicated. She doesn’t want anybody kind of holding her up or holding her back if they’re not at the same level.”
If you’d ask any of her teammates, none of them heard much of her rehab – not even her closest friends. She tried to prevent any sympathy from putting her into a spotlight. She was solely focused on the future.
“She doesn’t want to make her problem anyone else’s,” Araba said.
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On Jan. 13, 2021, while at a USWNT camp in preparation for a two-game series against Columbia, Fox sat with several national team veterans in socially-distanced seats. She heard her name called on the screen in front of them. She was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2021 National Women’s Soccer League Draft.
Experienced players, such as Rose Lavelle, Kelly O’Hara and Emily Sonnett, immediately began clapping and cheering, as Emily put her head down, avoiding any eye contact.
Later that day, she walked into the dining area and was greeted with a hug from former Tar Heel goalkeeper Ashlyn Harris and then was serenaded with applause by the rest of the USWNT. She gave them a quick wave and walked toward the food table.
When Sparling and Araba first heard the news, they jumped on the bed screaming. While Fox, who was on the phone with them as they freaked out, didn’t say much about it. There was no shouting on her end. But she was thrilled.
“It was very nerve-racking because you just don’t know where you’re gonna live and be for the next year,” Fox said. “So, I was relieved and also really excited.”
Since her first cap in 2018, Fox has appeared in 12 other matches for the USWNT. But whenever her mother tries to look ahead at the Americans’ schedule and create expectations of camps she’d be invited to, Fox shuts them down.
“She just takes every camp and every phone call from the national team as they come and never takes it for granted,” Leslie Fox said. “We’re not even allowed to talk about it.”
Fox was a highly-touted recruit, an all-conference selection at UNC, a top NWSL draft pick and is now a rising star on the national team. But if you tell that to her, she’d feel uncomfortable. She hates compliments.
But she loves her teammates and the game of soccer. Her knee injuries and rising soccer stardom is never going to change that.
“No matter what she achieves, she’s still Foxy,” Araba said. “And she’s just a great human being.”
