Flashback to May 9, 2021. It’s WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, North Carolina, and Texas Christian University is in the final eight of the NCAA women’s soccer tournament. For their best player, this will be her last game as a Horned Frog.
Five months earlier, Yazmeen Ryan was selected in the first round of the National Women’s Soccer League draft. From that day forward, she knew her professional path. When the clock struck 0:00 on her team’s 1-0 loss to Virginia, Ryan as a Portland Thorn.
This is what her transition was like, In Her Words, from Fort Worth, Texas, to Oregon.