Wendy Gebauer Palladino (born Wendy Sue Gebauer; December 25, 1966) is an American retired

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 ...

forward and former member 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 soccer. The team is the most successful in international women's soccer, winning four Women's World Cup titles ( 1991, 1999, 2015, an ...

. Considered a pioneer of women's soccer in the United States, Gebauer played on the 1991 United States women's national soccer team that won the first Women's World Cup in China. She was inducted into the Virginia-DC Soccer Hall of Fame in 2009.

Early life

Gebauer grew up in

Reston, Virginia Reston is a census-designated place in Fairfax County, Virginia and a principal city of the Washington metropolitan area. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, Reston's population was 63,226. Founded in 1964, Reston was influenced by the Garden City move ...

and began playing soccer at age six.

University of North Carolina

Gebauer attended the

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...

and played for 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 ...

led by national team coach at the time,

Anson Dorrance Albert Anson Dorrance IV (born April 9, 1951) is an American soccer coach. He is currently the head coach of the women's soccer program at the University of North Carolina. He has one of the most successful coaching records in the history of ath ...

. A highly decorated player, Gebauer was a three-time All-American, three-time National Champion, and was also on the Atlantic Coast Conference Academic Honor Roll.

Playing career

Club

Raleigh Wings

From 1998 to 2000, Gebauer played for the Raleigh Wings and was co-captain of the two-time National Championship winning team in the W-League.

Raleigh Capital Express

In 1999, Gebauer made history when she became the first female to suit up and play with men on the Raleigh Capital Express a team in the second level division in the United States at the time. Nearly 2,000 fans showed up for the game, one of the largest crowds for the season.

International

Gebauer played for the

from 1987 to 1991. In 1991, she was part of the team that won the first Women's World Cup in China and scored a goal during the final group match.

Sports broadcasting career

Gebauer was the color commentator for collegiate women's soccer on the

Fox Sports Network Fox Sports Networks (FSN), formerly known as Fox Sports Net, was the collective name for a group of regional sports channels in the United States. Formed in 1996 by News Corporation, the networks were acquired by The Walt Disney Company on Mar ...

for five years. For seven years, she was the lead analyst for coverage of the U.S. Women's National Soccer team on

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%). Th ...

, including the

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shoot ...

and 2003 Women's World Cup. In 2001, she was an analyst for TNT during their broadcast of WUSA games, the first women's professional soccer league in the United States.

References

External links

*
Virginia-DC Soccer Hall of Fame profile
Living people 1966 births People from Reston, Virginia Soccer players from Virginia United States women's international soccer players Women's association football forwards North Carolina Tar Heels women's soccer players 1991 FIFA Women's World Cup players Raleigh (Capital) Express players A-League (1995–2004) players USL W-League (1995–2015) players FIFA Women's World Cup-winning players American women's soccer players Women's United Soccer Association commentators Raleigh Wings players {{US-women-footy-bio-stub