Carla Werden Overbeck (; born May 9, 1968) is a retired American

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

player and longtime member and captain of the

United States women's national soccer team The United States women's national soccer team (USWNT) represents the United States in international women's Association football, soccer. The team is the most successful in international women's soccer, winning four FIFA Women's World Cup, Wom ...

. She is currently an assistant coach of

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

's women's soccer team, where she has been coaching since 1992, overseeing Duke's defensive unit principally. She was inducted into the

National Soccer Hall of Fame The National Soccer Hall of Fame is a private, non-profit institution established in 1979 and currently located in Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. The Hall of Fame honors soccer achievements in the United States. Induction ...

in 2006.

Playing career

Youth

Overbeck began playing soccer at the age of 11, playing for club soccer team the Dallas Sting. With the Sting, she won two national championships.

College

Overbeck played college soccer at the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...

from 1986 to 1989, where she won the NCAA Women's Soccer Championship each of her four seasons. She was an NSCAA All-America selection three times. During her time as a central defender with the

Tar Heels Tar Heel is a nickname applied to the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is also the nickname of the University of North Carolina athletic teams, students, alumni, and fans. The origins of the Tar Heel nickname trace back to North Carolina's promi ...

, the team tallied a 95-match unbeaten streak (89–0–6). Overbeck was a four-time member of the NCAA All-Tournament Team and a two-time All-ACC selection. In addition, she was a member of the 1986 Soccer America All-America Freshman Team and was the Most Valuable Defensive Player of the 1988 NCAA Tournament. On May 6, 2006, Overbeck was elected to the National Soccer Hall of Fame and was a 2010 North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame inductee.

Club

Overbeck played for the Raleigh Wings of the W-League in 1998 and helped the team finish with a 14–0 record and clinch the league's championship title. From 2001 to 2003, Overbeck played for the

Carolina Courage Carolina Courage was a professional soccer team that played in the Women's United Soccer Association. The team played at Fetzer Field on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus in 2001, and then at the soccer-specific SAS Stadium in Cary, North Carolina i ...

in the WUSA, the first professional soccer league for women in the United States. She was also on the WUSA Board of Governors. In August 2002, her overtime goal in the semifinal match helped lift the Courage to the WUSA Founders Cup II, the league's championship game against the

Washington Freedom Washington Freedom was an American professional soccer club based in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Germantown, Maryland, that participated in Women's Professional Soccer. The Freedom was founded in 2001 as a member of the defunct Women's Uni ...

, led by

Mia Hamm Mariel Margaret Hamm-Garciaparra (; born March 17, 1972) is an American retired professional soccer player, two-time Olympic gold medalist and two-time FIFA Women's World Cup champion. Hailed as a soccer icon, she played as a forward for the U ...

and Abby Wambach. The Courage defeated the Freedom 3–2 to clinch the championship title on August 24, 2002.

International

Overbeck first appeared with the U.S. national team on June 1, 1988, and was a member of the U.S. team that won the first-ever

FIFA Women's World Cup The FIFA Women's World Cup is an international association football competition contested by the senior women's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association ( FIFA), the sport's international governing bo ...

in 1991. Playing central defender, she led a defense that allowed five goals in six matches. She was one of two players to play every minute of each of the team's games at the

1995 FIFA Women's World Cup The 1995 FIFA Women's World Cup, the second edition of the FIFA Women's World Cup, was held in Sweden and won by Norway women's national football team, Norway, who became the first European nation to win the Women's World Cup. The tournament fea ...

, the 1996

Summer Olympics The Summer Olympic Games (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques d'été), also known as the Games of the Olympiad, and often referred to as the Summer Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The inau ...

, and the 1999 Women's World Cup. In 1998, she captained the national team to win the first-ever Goodwill Games. Overbeck retired from international competition following the 2000 Summer Olympics, finishing her career with 168

caps Caps are flat headgear. Caps or CAPS may also refer to: Science and technology Computing * CESG Assisted Products Service, provided by the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters * Composite Application Platform Suite, by Java Caps, a Java ...

Coaching career

Overbeck has been an assistant coach for Duke University's women's soccer team since 1992.

Media coverage

Overbeck appeared with her national team teammates on the cover of ''Sports Illustrated''s December 20, 1999 issue. She was featured in the film '' Dare to Dream: The Story of the U.S. Women's Soccer Team'' in 2007. Overbeck was featured in the ESPN series ''

Nine for IX ''Nine for IX'' is the title for a series of documentary films which aired on ESPN. The documentaries were produced by ESPN Films in conjunction with espnW, and were intended to have the same creative, story-driven aspect as ESPN Films' other ser ...

'' in "The 99ers" episode.

Personal life

Born in

Pasadena, California Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. I ...

, Overbeck grew up in

Richardson, Texas Richardson is a city in Dallas and Collin counties in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 United States census, the city had a total population of 119,469. Richardson is an inner suburb of the city of Dallas. It is home to the University of ...

, a suburb of

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

, where she attended

Richardson High School Richardson High School (RHS) is a magnet high school in Richardson, Texas, United States with approximately 2,770 students and a student/teacher ratio of approximately 15:1 in the 20182019 school year. It is the oldest high school in the Richardso ...

. She graduated from the

with a degree in

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...

in 1990. In late 1999, Overbeck was diagnosed with

Graves' disease Graves' disease (german: Morbus Basedow), also known as toxic diffuse goiter, is an autoimmune disease that affects the thyroid. It frequently results in and is the most common cause of hyperthyroidism. It also often results in an enlarged thyr ...

. In December 2009, she became an official spokesperson for Instaflex. She and her husband, Greg Overbeck, have one son, Jackson, and a daughter, Carson Elizabeth.

Honors and awards

Individual

inductee, 2006 * North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame inductee, 2010

Team

* ''Sports Illustrated'' Sportswomen of the Year, December 1999 * WUSA Founders Cup II, 2002

References

External links

*
Duke coach profile

Profile at WUSA
{{DEFAULTSORT:Overbeck, Carla 1968 births Living people United States women's international soccer players Women's association football central defenders National Soccer Hall of Fame members Women's Olympic soccer players of the United States North Carolina Tar Heels women's soccer players Olympic gold medalists for the United States in soccer Olympic silver medalists for the United States in soccer Footballers at the 1996 Summer Olympics Footballers at the 2000 Summer Olympics Women's United Soccer Association players Carolina Courage players FIFA Century Club 1991 FIFA Women's World Cup players 1995 FIFA Women's World Cup players 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup players FIFA Women's World Cup-winning players FIFA Women's World Cup-winning captains Medalists at the 2000 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 1996 Summer Olympics American women's soccer players Competitors at the 1998 Goodwill Games Raleigh Wings players USL W-League (1995–2015) players