Her Mother’s Daughter

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Gathered around a television to watch the United States defeat China in a 2015 Women’s World Cup quarterfinal, the Freemans started doing some geographic arithmetic. It wasn’t all that far from where the family was vacationing in Maine to Montreal, where the American team would face Germany in the semifinals. Why not go? Online searches soon secured tickets and a place to stay. One problem: While soccer may be the world’s game, the family hadn’t planned on their vacation going international. Friends at home in Oxford, Mississippi, came to the rescue, overnighting their passports.

Four days later, with her face painted and hair turned red, white and blue, Grace Freeman was so close to American goal-scoring legend Abby Wambach during warm-ups that television cameras briefly captured her awed countenance in the background.

“Just seeing the look in her eyes,” Tatum Freeman recalled of her daughter, “I was like, ‘If she ever wants to do this, I hope that there will be little girls looking at her like that.’”

On the heels of heartbreak in the 2011 World Cup and heart-stopping drama in the 2012 Olympics, the 2015 World Cup in Canada confirmed the USWNT’s return to the spotlight. Americans flocked across the border and watched from home in record numbers. For Tatum, who remembered watching the culturally seismic 1999 World Cup final, played in a packed Rose Bowl, from a bar with her future husband, it was confirmation that women’s sports were ready for a new moment and the era of unprecedented growth that followed.

“Sitting in a stadium where women were being honored and respected for their sport was eye-opening,” Tatum said of the more than 51,000 fans in Montreal’s Olympic Stadium. “I think that was when I realized that if my daughter wants to do something, she'll have a really beautiful and healthy platform to do it. The world is changing.”

It doesn’t change on its own. And it doesn’t change simply because one group of admittedly extraordinary American women won a tournament—whether in 1999 or 2015. It takes generations. It takes mothers and daughters.

These days, Grace is a graduate student cornerstone of a Vanderbilt defense that has helped propel the Commodores to No. 1 for the first time, after winning the program’s fourth SEC Tournament title and reaching the Elite Eight for the first time last fall. She began her final year of collegiate soccer almost 30 years to the day that her mom took the field for the first time as a Virginia Tech freshman.

Across three decades, more than half the span of Title IX, and countless highway miles, a mother paved the way for her daughter. With advice, unwavering support and, at least on one memorable afternoon in Quebec, face paint. But first, long before Grace arrived on the scene, by playing her part in a movement many years in the making.

And when you get right down to it, by playing.  

“I think she was a baller,” Grace said. “She was an outside back, very quick. She always tells me that no one would ever get past her. I don't know if she's just saying that to say that, but she's really quick. And she's scrappy. I would have loved to go one-on-one against her.”

The Original Outside Back

Tatum and Wambach were nearly college teammates, which presumably would have provided infinite cool points with her daughter years later. In the early days of the dial-up internet and before youth soccer was as stratified and all-encompassing, recruiting could be a pell-mell process. Tatum’s choices came down to Florida and Virginia Tech. Both programs had only taken the field for the first time while she was in high school in Virginia. The Gators, with Wambach, would go on to win the national title in 1998. But Tatum doesn’t regret choosing to stay closer to home, eventually helping the fledgling Hokies take root.

“I knew they didn't have the resources, but there's something beautiful about creating something new,” Tatum said. “Even at 17, I think I realized this could be something special and, maybe subconsciously, that there are not many chances in life to build from the foundation up. A lot of times you just inherit something or maybe you work for an already established company. This was different.”

The imagined romance often butted up against reality’s fast-food wrappers. She doesn’t remember leaving Blacksburg with any of the sort of branded gear that fills Grace’s closets. Then again, as she recollects, that was no great loss—their gear was often hand-me-downs that the men’s soccer team no longer needed. Their primary fitness test was a three-mile run, not the now ubiquitous and specialized beep test. Post-match treatment usually meant saran-wrapping a bag of ice to your leg. On the long road trips—almost always by bus, no matter the distance—stopping for meals before or after games meant fast food, which was more or less all their meal money could cover. And it wasn’t like she had a bad lot in life. Other than at a handful of elite programs that might have enjoyed a few more resources, her experience mirrored that of most of her peers across the country.  

But at the same time that she was helping the Hokies enjoy their first non-losing seasons, something was taking shape in the culture. She began her freshman season soon after the 1996 Olympics, a showcase for women’s team sports that helped lift the likes of Mia Hamm and Michelle Akers to new heights. She began her senior season shortly after the Brandi Chastain’s conversion from the penalty spot clinched the 1999 World Cup title. A generation removed from passage of Title IX and a fight for the right to exist, women’s team sports were beginning to fight for the national spotlight.  

Much is understandably made of the sporting life of Grace’s other parent. Brad Freeman is an NFL official and former two-sport standout who had stints in both minor league baseball and NFL Europe, in addition to on the Indianapolis Colts’ practice roster.  Indeed, his sports career played a significant role in how he and Tatum met; she had a summer job with the minor league baseball team he played for in the Carolina League. His was the more familiar American sports story. Yet it speaks to a particular moment in time that the 1999 Women’s World Cup was on all the televisions during one of their first encounters. As Tatum recalled, Brad had never watched women’s soccer. He learned to love it in a hurry.

“I never in my life would have imagined sitting in a restaurant or bar and having women's sports on TV,” Tatum said. “I can’t remember that happening in my lifetime, walking into a place and seeing a woman athlete on the screen. I think that was the moment when I realized something big is going to happen for women.”

Passing the Torch

It disrupts the narrative only slightly to acknowledge that Tatum wasn’t Grace’s initial inspiration for stepping onto a soccer field. That came from a backpack—specifically, the cool one her older brother got from his local youth club soccer team in Oxford, Mississippi. Not much older than a kindergartener, if that, Grace wasn’t satisfied until she had one of her own, complete with her name on it.

But even there, mom is part of the story.

Tatum was part of the first college class that graduated with a women’s professional league in operation, but the WUSA, which ceased operations in 2003, had just eight teams. She was ready to move on anyway. She was tired, knees and shins worn down by on-field combat and spirit sapped by bus rides and the student-athlete grind. She scarcely looked at a ball for several years. Not until after she had her first child, Grace’s older brother, Luke.

Her kids, first Luke and then Grace, brought her back to the sport as they got involved in youth soccer and all its benefits, from balance and coordination to socialization. She was wary of putting too heavy a hand on the tiller. She had lived her soccer life; she didn’t need to try and live another vicariously through them. Still, beyond the horror stories of soccer in the bad old days, always told with a laugh, she had genuine and hard-earned expertise that Grace, talented and competitive from an early age, sought out. 

“I would go to my mom with more soccer-specific things,” Grace said of those moments after games familiar to any family. “She was more knowledgeable, obviously, because she played. Every time I came off a field, my dad would be there telling me good job—his go-to was always 'You look so fast and strong.’ And my mom would give me pointers like, ‘Hey, you did great here, but look to do this next time.’

“So I'll definitely go to her more for soccer advice.”

Grace soon outgrew both the backpack and the limited competition available in a smaller town like Oxford. She wanted to challenge herself at a higher level, first with another club team in Memphis, about an hour and a half by car, and eventually with an elite ECNL team in Birmingham, Alabama, nearly three hours away. Most of those miles and hours behind the wheel, not to mention flights to tournaments further afield, fell to Tatum.

“It was a bonding experience that I not sure I could have had any other way with a teenager,” Tatum recalled. “We had so much time together. You build an incredible bond like that—she was my girl, and I was her support system. And we just had the best time. I couldn't be more grateful for that experience because of the time it gave us in a season of life where kids don't normally want to hang with their parents.”

Mother and daughter look alike, although Grace hastens to point out she is taller. Perhaps unwilling to let opposing SEC forwards sniff out any advantage, she also contends that her mom is more tender hearted. But even during those long hours on the road, Tatum didn’t try to steer Grace on any particular path. She didn’t starting playing soccer to be like her mom. She didn’t pursue college soccer to be like her mom. She didn’t become a defender to be like her mom. Perhaps those things just happened because she is like her mom. Soccer let her discover it in her own time. 

“There are some conversations about soccer, about the team and how I'm feeling about the season, whatever,” Grace said of their time together. “But we don't spend all of our time talking about that. We definitely have other things that we like to talk about. She's honestly one of my best friends. I'm lucky to have that sort of relationship with my mom because I know a lot of people don't. We honestly talk about everything under the sun.”

Freeman is one of only four Dores to play at least 670 minutes in the team's first nine games this season (Kevin M. Cox/Vanderbilt Athletics).

Vanderbilt’s Missing Piece of the Puzzle 

As Vanderbilt heads to Ole Miss for Thursday’s SEC encounter that doubles as Freeman’s homecoming, the Commodores have allowed just five goals in their past eight games. Such stinginess is hardly a surprise for a team that allowed the fourth-fewest goals in program history a season ago. A forward early in her soccer life who gradually moved to the other end of the field, Freeman has been instrumental in the success. A year ago, she was the final piece of the puzzle after winning a starting spot at her mom’s old position a month into the campaign. She’s been no less influential this season, a fixture in a three-back or four-back formation for a back line that has navigated the monumental challenge of replacing All-American and Hermann Trophy semifinalist Hannah McLaughlin.  

“She's a great team player,” Ambrose said. “She's a good example of someone who will do whatever you need her to do, who just says, ‘Coach, tell me what you need from me in those moments.’ Last season was good, but I think this year you're going to see even more out of Grace Freeman. She took on a new life in the spring and she's been incredible. It’s been fun watching her just explode at just the right time for this team.”

That wasn’t always a given. At about this time a year ago, she had started just once in Vanderbilt’s first seven games. She was in a new environment after four years at Ole Miss, where she graduated and started 34 matches in two seasons (she lost most of her first fall to injury). From her Master of Marketing program to the soccer field, she was overwhelmed.

“She's calling in tears a lot, which is hard as a parent because we're far away and this is something that she has to do on her own—I can't do it for her, dad can't do it for her,” Tatum recalled. “There are always expectations when you're playing D1 soccer, but Vanderbilt is different. You lead, with an expectation that you're going be great at everything. And you buy into that. So there was pressure on her that she hadn't felt.”

But importantly, and as much as it may not have felt like it some nights, that is precisely what she wanted. Almost from the start, from soccer to the flag football team her dad coached, she had been a little better than most everyone else. A little faster in a foot race, a little quicker to react, a little stronger, more agile. And almost from those earliest days, that wasn’t enough. She wanted to be challenged. She wanted to play for the club team in Memphis, then the ECNL team in Birmingham, then the SEC. After not only competing against Vanderbilt but seeing the Commodores reach the Sweet 16 in 2024, she recognized a group of women who seemed a lot like her. Much like the backpack all those years ago, she wanted in. Tears and all.

“I needed something new and something challenging,” Grace said. “This place may have been the most uncomfortable out of the schools that tried to recruit me, and that's part of the reason why I chose it. Also, Nashville is great. I grew up in a small town, so it’s complete opposites. Everything was the complete opposite from where I was, and I knew I needed that to grow because I just felt stagnant where I was.”

Lessons Learned Through Sport

Ambrose attributed some of Freeman’s initial growing pains at Vanderbilt to the difference between a willingness to train hard, which she had in abundance, and understanding how to train with intention, to dial in and improve specific technical areas. Once she saw how small details served the bigger picture of how Vanderbilt wants to play—a possession-oriented, progressive style that relies on collaboration and collective responsibility across the lines—her effort produced tangible growth. Her game took off.  

“It’s not that I was scared to have the ball, but my mindset was when I got the ball, don't make a mistake,” Freeman said of one example. “Now it's like I want the ball because I want to be able to make a play to help my team move forward. Even though that sounds weird—you're a soccer player, of course you should want the ball—there was just that thought in the back of my mind that I didn't want to mess up. And so now I think I'm playing a lot more free. I'm just more confident overall in myself and the people around me.”

That doesn’t just help Vanderbilt win SEC games. When surveys suggest former student-athletes are more likely than their peers to thrive after college and studies examine the benefits that being a former student-athlete conveys in hiring, it’s rooted in experiences like Grace’s in soccer: embracing challenges, committing to a common purpose, openness to coaching, motivation and on and on. At their best, sports develop people, not just athletes.

Grace is noncommittal as to whether playing is part of her next step. There are more professional soccer opportunities for her generation than there were for Tatum, even if they are still fewer and less lucrative than in the men’s game. But combining her marketing degrees with something in the sports world strikes her as an appealing new challenge. From Ambrose’s mentoring program that pairs current student-athlete with soccer alumni to the resources available through the Ingram Center for Student-Athlete Success and the Owen Graduate School of Management, she’ll have help exploring her options. And she’ll bring a particular set of skills.

“There is a team of 11 people, and when one of you is struggling, it's your job to identify what that person is going through and to support them and lift them up,” Tatum said of soccer’s lifelong value. “I've learned that's the same thing in a workplace. You're working with a team and people. One person is struggling or down. It's not their job to come to you. It's your responsibility to be aware of where they are and to lift them up.”

There will be another Women’s World Cup next summer and another opportunity to capture the national imagination. And whether or not she’s still playing somewhere by then, Grace will almost certainly be watching. Probably not with face paint. But lifted up all the same by women who played. One of them just a little closer to her than all the rest.

About Anchored for Her 
Anchored for Her is a comprehensive campaign to advance women and girls through the transformative power of sport. Within Vanderbilt Athletics, Anchored for Her’s initial $50 fundraising million goal will fuel investment in sustainable success for a new era of collegiate athletics through facility enhancements, endowed scholarships, coaching and staff positions, capital support and naming opportunities, the Anchored for Her General Fund, team-specific excellence funds and the Competitive Excellence Fund.