Joy Fawcett

Joy Fawcett was a defender who was one of the steady, vital stars of the United States women’s national team for more than 15 years from the late 1980s until 2004.

Throughout the 1990s, Fawcett and fellow Hall of Famer Carla Overbeck were a formidable duo in the center of the U.S. women’s defense, although Fawcett played right back in the 1999 World Cup. In the course of her career, she played in four Women’s World Cups, winning two of them, and three Olympic Games, winning two of those.

Fawcett, the sister of former U.S. men’s national team player Eric Biefield, was still Joy Biefield when she played in the U.S. team that won the first Women’s World Cup in 1991. She was Joy Fawcett when she played for the United States in the 1995, 1999 and 2003 Women’s World Cups, and the 1996, 2000 and 2004 Olympic Games.

Fawcett made her first appearance in the U.S. national team against China in 1987, her 100th in the Olympic semifinal in which the United States beat Norway in 1996, her 200th against Trinidad in 2002 and her last against Mexico in 2004. She started five of the United States’ six games at the 1991 Women’s World Cup, all six at the 1995 Women’s World Cup, all five at the 1996 Olympics, all six at the 1999 Women’s World Cup, all five at the 2000 Olympics, all six at the 2003 Women’s World Cup and all six at the 2004 Olympic Games. When she retired in 2004, she had played 239 games for the United States women, including 23 in the Women’s World Cup, 11 in World Cup qualifying, 16 in the Olympic Games and four in Olympic qualifying. She had a remarkable disciplinary record over those years. In more than 20,000 minutes of play for the United States, she was never red carded and received only two yellow cards.

Although she was not primarily an attacking player, she did score 27 goals in those 239 games for the United States, including a key goal in the 1999 Women’s World Cup, the gamewinner in the quarterfinal against Germany on a near-post header from a corner kick. She also had goals for the United States at the 1991 and 1995 Women’s World Cups.

Fawcett, an all-American at the University of California in 1987, ’88, and ’89, was the women’s soccer coach at UCLA from 1993 to 1997. Although she was most noted as a national-team mainstay, she also played three seasons in the Women’s United Soccer Association, all for the San Diego Spirit. She was a first-team WUSA all-star in 2003.

At the time of the 1999 Women’s World Cup, she became well known as one of the two “Soccer Moms” in the United States team along with Overbeck. In 1999, she had two children: Katelyn, born in in 1994, and Carli, born in 1997. Her third daughter, Madilyn, was born in 2001, and Fawcett set a record of sorts by returning to play for the San Diego Spirit just six weeks after giving birth.

She is the eighth member of the 1991 Women’s World Cup champion team to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, the sixth member of the 1996 Olympic champion team, the fifth member of the 1999 Women’s World Cup champion team and the third member of the 2004 Olympic champion team.