Sydney Watts Sees You

It’s a late September afternoon in Knoxville, Tennessee. For seemingly the first time all season, the heat isn’t nearing blistering levels as third-ranked Vanderbilt heads to the locker room at halftime against No. 9 Tennessee. No mid-game hydration breaks; no frequent substitutions; just hard-nosed, rivalry soccer near the top of the SEC standings. 

Sydney Watts re-ties her cleats. On her left wrist, in Sharpie, are a cross, a Bible verse and the number 10.  

The senior is 10 goals away from 20 for the season, which would break the single-season program record set by Laura Koerner in 1998. The self-scribbled notes are visible on the broadcast; it’s finally cool enough outside to avoid smudging. 

 

It’s scoreless at the half. The match’s best chance so far came to Watts’ feet and was sprayed just left of the frame. Most days, it’s ruffling the back of the net. She knows that. 

“I still remember I should have had a goal. It was on my left foot,” she recalls. “We knew what we were doing was working. Darren was saying at halftime, ‘We’re going to get a goal.’” 

It was less so words of encouragement from head coach Darren Ambrose and more of a reminder of what Watts – and the entire team – has become accustomed to doing. It took less than two minutes out of halftime for her to get on the end of a great team move and slide a pass from Adysen Armenta into the back of the net.

9.     

Fifteen minutes later, she perfectly times a run past the defense and is wide open in front of goal. Around the keeper, slowly into the back of the net, 2-0 Vanderbilt. 

8.    

Her goal catalog is filled with clips just like those from that modest day in Knoxville. There’s no shortage of highlight-reel finishes, either. But you don’t win SEC Forward of the Year in back-to-back seasons solely on skill moves and picture-perfect technique. It takes discipline; creativity; patience; vision; ruthlessness.  

It takes knowing, too. She’s quick to tell you what that goal-scoring record is, and just how long it has stood. She sits four goals away from tying it as the No. 1 Commodores enter postseason play. The mission of repeating as SEC Tournament champions and making their first-ever College Cup sits at the front of her mind, but Watts pictures all of these events on a string, happening because of each other. 

“When I score, we win,” she correctly notes. Their only blemish this season, a 1-1 draw at Georgia, was one of the four games in which she did not find the back of the net. Last year, they were 11-2 when she scored and 7-2-2 when she didn’t. “It’s not being selfish or trying to put pressure on my shoulders, but knowing that if I get the ball in the right areas of the field, good things are likely coming.” 

Knowing where you stand in relation to players around you is crucial to a forward’s scoring chances. The margins of the sport’s offside rule mean the difference between a goal and a violation can be a matter of inches. 

Watts has mastered that art of awareness. She knows how regarded she is on an opponent’s game plan, and how it translates to opportunities. She sees where she stands on this year’s goal-scoring leaderboard. If you’re ahead of her, she knows how many goals she’ll need to catch you. 

The note she scribbles on her wrist before every match isn’t just a reminder of the history she’s chasing; it’s a routine. After taking a Vanderbilt class that covered the wide range of sports superstitions, Watts realized she was decidedly not superstitious — she was habitual. 

She writes the same note with the same Sharpie, with the same Bible verse — Romans 8:38. She drinks the same flavor of energy drink from the same brand, a brand that she hasn’t forgotten overlooked her NIL application years ago. 

“To this day, I would never reapply. I’m sure they would love to have me now,” she says with a smile. “They missed out because I still love their drink.” 

Her competitive nature is just that — nature. Her parents both played soccer – her mom, Wendy, also competed in basketball and track – at Baker University in Kansas. Sydney’s first soccer game, as explained to her, came at three years old, in a match not for her team but for her sister Lexi. The eldest of two by 14 months, Lexi left the match with the most common ailment in that age group — excessive crying — and Rian, doubling as father and coach, subbed Sydney on. 

Lexi and Sydney Watts

She wouldn’t come off the bench much as she progressed. In her final two years at St. Thomas Aquinas High School, she was named both an All-American and the Kansas Gatorade Player of the Year. She was also a four-year starter for a state champion basketball team, a sport she still enjoys. You might find her at the student rec center in the offseason. 

It changed as a freshman at Vanderbilt. After an injury disrupted her preseason, Watts found herself having to fight for playing time for the first time in her career. 

“It was the lowest my confidence has ever been,” she says of her freshman year. “I was just scared to make a mistake. It took a lot of recovering from.” 

She totaled 378 minutes across 15 games in 2023, the third-most among Vandy freshmen. 

“We held her feet to the fire that year, for sure, because of how good we knew she could be,” Ambrose said. “The tools that she has, she’s always had: strength, speed, technique. It was just getting her to use it well.” 

There wasn’t a turning point or a singular moment you can trace where Watts became one of the most dangerous forwards in the nation. It didn’t happen overnight. But it happened. She scored nine goals as a sophomore on the way to the program’s first Sweet Sixteen. And 16 the next year en route to the Elite Eight.  

This class of Vanderbilt soccer players – highlighted by Watts, Courtney Jones, Ally Bollig-Agu, Melania Fullerton, Alexa Gianoplus, among others – played their roles in the beginning of the program’s national rise in 2024.  Now, they’re tasked with not simply carrying the torch but burning it brighter than ever. 

“I credit the older players – Abi Brighton, Kate Devine [and] Sara Wojdelko – with setting the standard for where we want to be as a program,” Ambrose said. “What Sydney and this class of players have done is take the pressure that comes with the expectations and the rankings, and they’ve handled it extremely well. They’ve shown the next crop what it means to maintain a very high level.” 

Sydney Watts and Courtney Jones have combined for 157 matches played and 152 points

 

Mia Hebert vividly remembers her first high school soccer match. A freshman forward at Notre Dame de Sion High School, she was getting the start against “Aquinas,” led by Vanderbilt commit Sydney Watts. 

“Everyone in the area knew who she was, but it was still way different in person,” recalls Hebert. “They killed us. She scored at least two bangers.” 

Aquinas won, 5-1. Box scores are harder to come by, but the senior Watts scored a school-record 37 goals that year.  

Hebert became one of the Kansas City area’s best soccer products in her own right, committing to Vanderbilt and joining the team in August 2026. Still, the mystique of Sydney, the competitor, overshadowed Sydney, the person. 

“I saw her at the store I was working at over the summer, and I was still so scared to talk to her,” Hebert recalls. “She just had so much aura. She was like, ‘Aren’t you coming this summer?’ and I could barely say yes.” 

She wasn’t alone; ask any Vanderbilt freshman who they feared the most in the preseason, and the odds-on favorite is No. 15. And if you ask her, she’d tell you the same thing. 

“One million percent. People just kind of are intimidated by me before they know me,” she says, pausing to decide the best way to explain why. “My resting face isn’t the best.” 

The fear is replaced quickly; in the preseason, as many freshmen as could fit in Watts' car would pile in and go for lunch or coffee. Now, you’ll see the posse of freshmen flock to her, not like sheep but as birds of a feather. 

“Her sense of humor is the best because she can take it and laugh at herself,” said Hebert. “But she will always give it back to you.” 

The duo of Hebert and Watts, both tall, agile, All-SEC forwards who can strike a ball with the best of them, has led an attack that ranks fourth in the nation in goals per game. Watts relishes Hebert’s success like her own; in some ways, it is.  

“I’m so freaking happy and excited for her,” she told SEC Network+ after Hebert’s brace in a 4-0 win at Ole Miss. “Seeing the freshmen succeed, as a senior, is one of the most magical things ever.” 

Mia Hebert and Sydney Watts

Now at the tail end of her senior year, Watts is well aware of the weight she carries both on and off the field. Perhaps no player in the country commands more attention from opposing defenses. But she knows that goals, even a record-breaking amount of them, won’t be her lasting legacy. 

“Something we always talk about is leaving the jersey better than you’ve found it, and I think I’ve done that,” Watts said. “My hope is that I’m remembered not for goals but for being there for people.” 

You might notice that number 4 in Sharpie on her wrist when the Dores take on Texas at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday. You might notice it becomes a 3. You might notice it disappears altogether before the season is said and done. 

You might not. To Watts, the more important note she writes is Romans 8:38, which you might notice, too: “And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow.” 

“At the end of the day, I’m a freaking mustard seed,” she says when asked about the pressures of the sport. “The tiniest grain of sand on the beach. It’s only soccer.”