Our mission is to provide underserved communities access to innovative play spaces and evidenced-based soccer programs that instill hope, foster well-being, and help youth achieve their fullest potential.

I was proud to host the US Soccer Foundation CEO Ed Foster-Simeon, executive team, and Chicago Leadership Team at Double Clutch in Evanston. We talked about our various initiatives to use soccer to improve children’s physical and mental health and overall well-being in underserved communities.

We train coaches to serve as mentors and create positive connections with youth to create a safe and inclusive youth sports experience for everyone.

We also have initiatives to enable access to soccer for low income and marginalized communities.

I was invited to the US Congressional Soccer Match in 2024 and met with Mana Shim, who was a professional NWSL player and sexual harassment abuse survivor. Mana testified before Congress on March 21, 2024 about her experience and the profound power imbalance between players and coaches, emphasizing that at the time, neither her team nor the league had anti-harassment policies in place. Despite reporting the misconduct, her coach continued coaching elsewhere for five more years, perpetuating abusive behavior.​

Mana underscored the systemic nature of such abuse, noting that many athletes, from youth levels to professional leagues, have endured similar experiences. She stressed the necessity of implementing robust policies and procedures to protect athletes and prevent future misconduct. Her advocacy, alongside others, led to significant reforms, including the establishment of anti-harassment policies in the NWSL. In February 2025 the NWSL announced a $5M Settlement for abuse survivors.

In 2025 we were proud to launch “Yes, Coach!” a groundbreaking initiative to equip 100,000 coach-mentors with essential training to support 3 million young people on and off the field.

Along with “Coach-Mentor" training, we believe that coaches are influential figures in children’s lives. We train coaches to serve as mentors and create positive connections with youth. The result? A safe and inclusive youth sports experience for everyone.

February 2025 - Chicago-based National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) has agreed to establish a $5 million restitution fund for players who experienced abuse, following investigations revealing widespread misconduct within the league. The settlement also mandates the continuation of safeguards implemented after the 2022 investigations, including comprehensive vetting of personnel, mechanisms for reporting abuse, and access to free counseling services for players.

Yates Report: The independent investigation into player abuse in women's professional soccer found a long list of failures by National Women's Soccer League coaches and executives, as well as the United States Soccer Federation itself. Both NWSL and US Soccer Federation are based in Chicago.

"Our investigation has revealed a league in which abuse and misconduct -- verbal and emotional abuse and sexual misconduct -- had become systemic, spanning multiple teams, coaches, and victims," the report read. "Abuse in the NWSL is rooted in a deeper culture in women's soccer, beginning in youth leagues, that normalizes verbally abusive coaching and blurs boundaries between coaches and players."

The summary report, a copy of which was obtained by ESPN, also details recommendations for the USSF to implement going forward. The investigation was conducted by former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, on behalf of the USSF.

By the mid-2000s, some of Dames’s coaching methods had changed, players said, and he no longer made explicitly sexual comments. But several of Dames’s former youth players at Eclipse described verbal and emotional abuse and control that continued long after the police investigation.

“It was just all this belittlement,” said Haley Leanna, who played for Dames starting at age 13 in 2012. “We were always hoping he didn’t show up at practice so we could just have a day to breathe.”

Dames would mock their parents’ occupations, three former players said, or bring up their home lives when they made a mistake. During games and practices, the name-calling was constant: Players recalled Dames calling them “p---ies,” “donkeys,” “f---ing idiots” or “retarded.”

He often called his young players “fat,” several women said, sometimes appending vulgar words — “fat f--k,” “fat c--t,” “fat ass.” The body-shaming included girls as young as 10, two former players said. One recalled how in fifth grade, at a hot summer tournament, she and her teammates tied their shirts up, leaving some of their stomachs visible. Dames singled out the girl, who was heavier than some of her teammates, and said: “Put that down. That’s not a good look for you.” She began to cry, she said.. . .

“Dames and Eclipse hired a coach, John Soltani, who was later sanctioned by the U.S. Center for SafeSport, an independent nonprofit tasked with investigating child and sexual abuse in sports, for behavior at a previous club. He was placed on probation for two years after a SafeSport investigation found he had engaged in “verbal acts that constitute the sexual harassment of a minor athlete” at a previous club, according to a 2020 notice from the Illinois Youth Soccer Association to Soltani obtained by The Post. The document says the IYSA “determined that this behavior is abhorrent in youth sports.”

Soltani was a former Glenbrook North High School Girls Assistant Coach and foundering local soccer club high school girls Director of Coaching

In my role on a local soccer club board, in 2015 - 2018 I was asked by several families parents to help them as a community member to express concerns about 2 GBS and GBN Girls Soccer Coaches who were harassing their daughters. I did do this at both high schools and the Park Districts.

8/6/2018 FOIA

- Page 142 - 145

- Page 193 - 196

- Page 344

Patch Jun 29, 2018

Police records show the investigation that led to the firing of longtime North Shore girls soccer coach Craig Snower from his positions with Loyola Academy and another suburban club began with a report from the family of a player who quit the school team because of being subjected to inappropriate sexual comments. Snower allegedly said some players were only on the field because of their attractive mothers, discussed the sex lives of the teenage girls he coached and kept a "hot moms list" and pornography on his phone, according to records of an investigation by Wilmette and Glenview police into his conduct.

School staff told police they had previously gotten complaints about Snower for his yelling and cursing at girls while playing. Some parents had previously expressed concerns to staff their daughters were not comfortable being around Snower during his 14 years in charge of the team, but they "never provided specific complaints," Loyola Athletic Director Pat Mahoney told Wilmette detectives.

Publicly available information