Hope Solo

Hope Solo began dating former American football player Jerramy Stevens in August 2012. They got married on November 14, 2012, two days after an incident that had left Solo injured and Stevens in jail.

A victim of the 2014 iCloud leaks of celebrity nude photos, she publicly spoke out against the perpetrators, calling the act “beyond the bounds of human decency”.

Solo was involved in an altercation with Teresa and her son that led to her arrest on the charges of two misdemeanour counts of assault of the fourth degree on June 21, 2014. She pleaded not guilty.

Born in Richland, Washington on July 30, 1981, Hope Amelia Solo is the daughter of Italian-American Vietnam War veteran Jeffrey Solo and Judy Lynn (née Shaw). She has three siblings, a half-sister, Teresa and two brothers, Dave and Marcus.

Her parents divorced when she was six years old. A year later, her father took her and Marcus to Seattle where they lived out of a hotel for several days. What seemed like a vacation to a seven-year-old Hope turned out to be an alleged kidnapping when Jeffrey was arrested by the police, and the children were returned to their mother.

She studied at ‘Richland High School’, where, as a forward, she scored 109 goals and marshalled her team to three back-to-back league title wins from 1996 to 1998 and a state championship win in 1998. During her school days, Solo also used to play for the ‘Three Rivers Soccer Club’ in the Tri-Cities.

After graduating school, Solo went to study speech communications at the ‘University of Washington’ in 1999. She joined the Washington Huskies, and under the tutelage of head coach Lesle Gallimore and goalkeeping coach Amy Griffin, she made the transition to be a goalkeeper.

She also started her international career during her college days. In her debut match as a senior in April 2000, at Davidson, North Carolina, the US national women team defeated Iceland 8-0.

Hope Solo was drafted by the ‘Women's United Soccer Association’ team ‘Philadelphia Charge’ in 2003. She took the field in eight matches, securing her first professional shutout against the ‘Atlantic Beat’.

After WUSA suspended operations in 2003, she travelled to Europe and played for the Swedish club ‘Kopparbergs/Göteborg’ in 2004, and the French club ‘Olympique Lyonnais Féminin’ in 2005.

She was chosen as a substitute goalkeeper for the US 2003 Summer Olympics campaign. In 2005, she was promoted as the primary choice, which ultimately led to the creation of her record of the longest undefeated streak by a US goalkeeper with 55 games from March 7, 2002 to July 16, 2008.

Though Solo was part of the starting line-up for the majority of the 2007 FIFA Women’s World Cup matches, she was benched in favour of veteran Briana Scurry in the semi-final match, which the US lost to Brazil 4-0. In a post-match interview, Solo criticised the decision.

She gave a stellar performance in US’ successful bid for the gold medal at 2008 Beijing Olympics. In the final Solo and her team defeated Brazil 1-0.

Hope Solo was named All-American by ‘Parade’ magazine in 1997 and 1998. She was an NSCAA All-American in 2000, 2001, and 2002, and a Pac-10 Selection from 1999 to 2002.

She was conferred with the ‘WPS Goalkeeper of the Year’ award and the ‘US Soccer Female Athlete of the Year’ award in 2009.

She won the ‘FIFA Women World Cup Golden Glove twice’, in 2011 and 2015, and made it to the tournament’s all-star team in those years as well. She was also the winner of the Bronze Ball in 2011.

’International Federation of Football History & Statistics’ named her world’s women best goalkeeper for four consecutive years (2012-15)

She was given the ‘Phoenix Mercury Woman of Inspiration’ award in 2012.