Former DU star Kristen Hamilton finds place with USWNT, NWSL despite different path

Jeff Hook­er has seen it hap­pen before.

Every few years, a tal­ent of immense abil­i­ty emerges. A play­er so good coach­es real­ize she is des­tined for great­ness from a young age. Think Mal­lo­ry Pugh or Lind­sey Horan — Col­orado soc­cer prodi­gies in every sense of the word.

Kris­ten Hamil­ton wasn’t that.

“You look at some kids who are just excep­tion­al, and you’re going, ‘Oh man, that kid’s got a chance to make the youth nation­al team or at least try out for it,’” said Hook­er, enter­ing his 29th year as the DU Pio­neers women’s soc­cer coach.

“She’s not one that I said that about at that age.”

Now a strik­er with the pow­er­house North Car­oli­na Courage, Hamil­ton has come a long way from her soc­cer begin­nings in the front yard of her child­hood home in Lit­tle­ton. She’s a three-time NWSL cham­pi­on, an inter­na­tion­al­ly capped USWNT play­er, and most recent­ly won the 2019–20 Julie Dolan Medal for being the best play­er in Australia’s W‑League dur­ing a recent loan spell with the West­ern Syd­ney Wanderers.

Her uncon­ven­tion­al path to pro­fes­sion­al suc­cess, how­ev­er, sets her apart from the rest.

“It puts me in a real­ly unique posi­tion to be able to relate to some of the girls who might be on a sim­i­lar path to mine,” she said. “Play­ers who are in col­lege are like, ‘It’s so inspir­ing know­ing that if I wasn’t in the youth sys­tem, it doesn’t mean the dream is over.’”

While Hamil­ton may not have been a soc­cer wun­derkind like Pugh and Horan, those who saw her devel­op dur­ing her time at Columbine High School, and lat­er at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Den­ver, believe Hamilton’s suc­cess is a val­i­da­tion of her qual­i­ties as a play­er and person.

“It’s great to see some­one with a blue-col­lar per­son­al­i­ty and work rate be suc­cess­ful,” Hook­er said. “She didn’t get many of the acco­lades oth­er kids grow­ing up between the age of 16 and 18 did, but it nev­er both­ered her. She put her head down and just con­tin­ues to try to be the best.”

James Wors­fold, Get­ty Images

Kris­ten Hamil­ton of the Wan­der­ers leaps over the tack­le from Mor­gan Andrews of the Perth Glo­ry dur­ing the round 14 W‑League match between the Perth Glo­ry and the West­ern Syd­ney Wan­der­ers at Hay Park on Feb­ru­ary 29, 2020 in Bun­bury, Australia.

Hamil­ton has played soc­cer since she was four, and met Hook­er when he coached her U‑11 club team, when she con­stant­ly got into trou­ble for unfo­cused energy.

She even­tu­al­ly got more seri­ous about the game and devel­oped a pas­sion for it, mak­ing Columbine’s var­si­ty team as a fresh­man and trans­form­ing into a col­lege prospect. After com­mit­ting to DU as a sopho­more, every­thing start­ed to click. Her first step, quick­ness, and phys­i­cal­i­ty all improved, but Hook­er was most impressed by the com­pet­i­tive edge she added to her game.

For Hamil­ton, that com­pet­i­tive­ness arose because of oppor­tu­ni­ty. Through­out child­hood, she’d seen pro­fes­sion­al women’s soc­cer leagues fold due to a lack of fund­ing. The rise of the NWSL near the end of her prep career pre­sent­ed a chance to pur­sue what she loved.

“The NWSL pops up and there’s kind of hope that there’s going to be a pro­fes­sion­al league that’s going to be sus­tain­able and sub­stan­tial and stay around for a while,” she said. “So for me, the dri­ve to get to that point changed my mindset.”

By the time she arrived at DU, Hamil­ton was on anoth­er lev­el. She absorbed every­thing coach­es taught her, learned Hooker’s sys­tem, and after just a few weeks on cam­pus, Hook­er was con­vinced she’d play beyond college.

The for­ward shined at Den­ver. Her 138 career points, 51 goals and 18 game-win­ners remain school records. In 2013, she was a MAC Her­mann Tro­phy semi­fi­nal­ist as one of the best play­ers in the NCAA. She also assist­ed Nic­ho­lette DiGiacomo’s extra-time win­ner against Mary­land, help­ing lead the Pios to their first Sweet 16 trip in 2012.

Fol­low­ing her grad­u­a­tion in 2013, she entered the 2014 NWSL Draft where she was part of a stacked class that includ­ed cur­rent stars Julie Ertz, Kealia Watt, and No. 1 over­all pick Crys­tal Dunn. At a draft par­ty held by her sis­ter, Nicole, Kris­ten ed as name after name came off the board until final­ly, with the very last pick, the West­ern New York Flash called her name.

“It was this moment of just pure excite­ment for all of us,” Nicole said.

The joy didn’t last long. In Kristen’s first pre­sea­son game with the Flash, she tore her ACL after going into a 50–50 chal­lenge with the oppos­ing goalkeeper.

“It was tough, obvi­ous­ly because of the pain hav­ing not gone through that, but men­tal­ly as well,” Hamil­ton said. “You’re try­ing to fig­ure out, ‘Why am I doing this? Do I real­ly want to push myself to come back and con­tin­ue to play pro­fes­sion­al­ly? Is this some­thing I want to do and pursue?’”

Alex Goodlett, Get­ty Images

Kris­ten Hamil­ton #23 of North Car­oli­na Courage in action dur­ing a game against the Chica­go Red Stars on day 5 of the NWSL Chal­lenge Cup at Zions Bank Sta­di­um on July 5, 2020 in Her­ri­man, Utah.

The answer to all of those ques­tions was “yes.”

Hamil­ton returned and made her offi­cial NWSL debut for the Flash in 2015. A year lat­er, she helped the team win the title. She stayed with the team again after new own­er­ship moved the Flash south and rebrand­ed the fran­chise the North Car­oli­na Courage.

Play­ing with estab­lished stars like Abby Dahlkem­per, Debin­ha, Dunn, and behind expe­ri­enced strik­ing pair of Jes­si­ca McDon­ald and Lynn Williams, Hamil­ton strug­gled for game time. Though she con­sid­ered ask­ing for a trade, she even­tu­al­ly adjust­ed to an unfa­mil­iar role and con­tributed to the team’s title game runs in 2017 and 2018, win­ning the latter.

“As a pro­fes­sion­al ath­lete, every­one wants to start, every­one wants to play min­utes and when you’re not it’s hard, it takes a toll,” she said, “but I think one of the biggest things for me was just redefin­ing the role.”

The hard work and patience paid off in 2019. She scored her first pro­fes­sion­al hat trick in a 3–0 win against the Orlan­do Pride in June, then put four past the Hous­ton Dash a month lat­er. Hamilton’s nine goals tied her for third in the league, and she was named to the NWSL sec­ond-team all league.

Her per­for­mances also led to a USWNT call-up dur­ing the vic­to­ry tour fol­low­ing the 2019 World Cup, and Hamil­ton earned her first inter­na­tion­al cap Sept. 3, 2019, at 27 years old against Portugal.

“It was a packed sta­di­um,” Hamil­ton said. “Hear­ing the crowd and the noise, and wear­ing that jer­sey was real­ly special.”

James Els­by, Get­ty Images

Kris­ten Hamil­ton of West­ern Syd­ney Wan­der­ers FC reacts after miss­ing a penal­ty dur­ing the round 11 W‑League match between Ade­laide Unit­ed and the West­ern Syd­ney Wan­der­ers at Mar­den Sports Com­plex on Jan. 25, 2020 in Ade­laide, Australia.

Before par­tic­i­pat­ing in the NWSL Chal­lenge Cup this sum­mer, Hamil­ton played abroad for the first time in her career in Aus­tralia — men­tor­ing and lead­ing young play­ers for the first time since college.

For now, Hamilton’s future remains in North Car­oli­na as she recent­ly extend­ed her con­tract with the club through 2022. But she hopes to rejoin the USWNT again and play over­seas again.

Her career has been any­thing but nor­mal, but now, through per­se­ver­ance and com­mit­ment, she’s done what few peo­ple believed was pos­si­ble all those years ago. And she’s not done yet.

“I want to show what I can do because it’s not a fluke that I’m here,” she said.

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