Trinity Rodman and Triple Espresso, One Year Later: A Reminder to Us Sports Parents That the Journey Isn’t a Straight Line

A year ago, they were on top of the world.

Trinity Rodman. Mallory Swanson. Sophia Wilson.

A trio so electric, so uncontainable, that they were nicknamed Triple Espresso—soccer’s high-octane shot of brilliance. They didn’t just win Olympic gold for the U.S. in 2024, they owned the tournament, scoring 10 of the team’s 12 goals and igniting a wave of hope that U.S. women’s soccer was back with a vengeance.

Fast forward 12 months and only one of them is still playing – barely.

This is what they don’t tell you when you’re climbing the mountain: even at the top, the ground can shift beneath your feet.

Swanson and Wilson are both out of action, expecting their first children. And Rodman, just played her first game in four months and has said that her back may never feel 100%. This injury isn’t something she’s healed from. It’s something she’s learning to manage and she hadn’t played since April. 

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In just one year, the fiercest front line in the world was pulled apart—not by an opponent, but by life. Injury. Pregnancy. The body saying “not right now.” The mental toll of being great, young, and human all at once.

It’s something youth sports parents and young athletes need to understand—not just in theory, but deep in their bones. Because we still think of sports as a ladder. You climb. You move up. You hit milestones. You progress. But the truth is, it’s not a straight line. It’s not even a path. It’s a living, breathing, unpredictable thing. And it doesn’t come with guarantees.

One minute, your kid is scoring goals and being scouted. The next, they’re sidelined or switching teams or burned out. One season, they’re flying high. The next, they’re wrestling with their body, their confidence, their place in it all. We tell them to chase the dream—but we rarely prepare them for what happens when the dream shifts. When it pauses. When it asks something different of them than it did before.

That’s what made Trinity Rodman’s return last weekend so powerful.

She stepped onto the field for the first time since April. It was the 76th minute, and her team—Washington Spirit—was locked in a 1-1 battle with Portland. Then, in stoppage time, she scored the game-winner. And she wept.

Not quietly, not politely—she wept. And her teammates came running. Kingsbury sprinted the length of the field. Bethune, who fed her the perfect assist, grabbed her first. Everyone else piled on. It wasn’t about the goal. It was about what it took to get there. The pain, the rehab, the uncertainty. The isolation. The fear that maybe it was slipping away.

They didn’t just cheer for her—they saw her.

Because even in the toughest seasons—when you’re doubting, when you’re waiting, when everything feels so far from where you thought you’d be—sports can still give you something glorious. 

That’s why we keep showing up. That’s why we don’t quit when it gets hard. Not because there’s always a happy ending—but because sometimes, when you least expect it, you get something better: perspective. Resilience. Grace.

Triple Espresso isn’t over. They’re just becoming something else now. And maybe that’s exactly what this moment in women’s sports needed. A reminder that the magic isn’t just in the rise—it’s in the return, too.

So if your kid is in one of those low places—the bench, the injury, the hard conversation—you don’t need to panic. You don’t need to fix it. You just need to remember: this is part of it.

Injury Isn’t The End. They’re not broken. They’re becoming.

The journey is messy. It's unpredictable. It's up, and down, and all around.

And if you stick with it long enough, it will break your heart, and then hand you something beautiful. Just like that goal.