Valerie Kay Henderson (born April 19, 1986) is an 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 ...

goalkeeper In many team sports which involve scoring goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or intercepting o ...

currently playing for the

Western New York Flash The Western New York Flash (WNY Flash) was an American soccer club based in Elma, New York that competed in the United Women's Soccer league. They have won league championships in four different leagues: the USL W-League in 2010, Women's Profess ...

of the

National Women's Soccer League The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) is a professional women's soccer league at the top of the United States league system. It is owned by the teams and, until 2020, was under a management contract with the United States Soccer Federatio ...

. Attended Miramonte High School in Orinda, California where she played all 4 years on the Varsity Women's Soccer Team. She played four seasons as the starting goalkeeper for the

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

women's soccer team from 2004 to 2007, and subsequently played at a professional level for

Pali Blues Pali Blues was an American women's soccer team, which played from 2008 to 2014. The team was a member of the United Soccer Leagues USL W-League, the second tier of women's soccer in the United States and Canada. The team played in the Western Co ...

Los Angeles Sol The Los Angeles Sol was an American professional soccer club that was based in the Los Angeles suburb of Carson, California that participated in Women's Professional Soccer. The team was co-owned and operated by Blue Star, LLC and AEG, a subsidia ...

and

Philadelphia Independence The Philadelphia Independence was an American professional soccer club that was based in the Philadelphia suburb of Chester, Pennsylvania. The team joined Women's Professional Soccer as an expansion team in 2010 and played its home games at West ...

plus

Damallsvenskan The Damallsvenskan, Swedish for ''ladies all-Swedish'' and also known as OBOS Damallsvenskan for sponsorship reasons, is the highest division of women's football in Sweden. It is also referred to as the women's Allsvenskan. The term Allsvenskan ...

side KIF Örebro before signing for the Atlanta Beat in 2012.The soccer season never ends, it just shifts.

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

Henderson was a member of the

United States U-23 women's national soccer team The United States U-23 women's national soccer team is a youth soccer team operated under the auspices of U.S. Soccer. Its primary role is the development of players in preparation for the full Women's National Team. The team competes in a va ...

. In the 2013

NWSL The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) is a professional women's soccer league at the top of the United States league system. It is owned by the teams and, until 2020, was under a management contract with the United States Soccer Federatio ...

supplemental draft, Henderson was chosen in the third round, 31st overall, to play for the

in the inaugural NWSL season.

References

External links

*
US Soccer profile

Philadelphia Independence profile

W-League player profile
1986 births Living people UCLA Bruins women's soccer players Los Angeles Sol players Pali Blues players Philadelphia Independence players USL W-League (1995–2015) players Western New York Flash players American women's soccer players Women's association football goalkeepers United States women's under-20 international soccer players Damallsvenskan players KIF Örebro DFF players Miramonte High School alumni Women's Professional Soccer players {{US-footy-goalkeeper-stub