AUSTIN, Texas — Six women have come together to create a new soccer legacy in Austin.
With season kicking off less than a week away, Austin Rise is ready to demonstrate its skills on the field and show the rest of the Women’s Premier School League that, although they may be new, they belong here.
For the last 10 months, Austin Rise has been a work in progress behind the scenes to build a completely new semi-pro women’s soccer team. Instead of rebranding or building off of their previous team, the six co-founders wanted to create an entirely new brand that cultivates a safe environment for the players, with the goal of becoming a team that is founded on good values.
When asked about the story behind their team name, co-founder Katie Reed said they wanted something that truly represents the team and demonstrate what they’ve been through.
“Austin Rise felt very fitting for us and fitting for our situation, where we came from, kind of rising out of a situation that was very unfortunate,” said Katie Reed.
One thing that makes Austin Rise stand out from other teams is that the team is 100% owned by women.
“As women soccer grows, we not only want to see more opportunities for women players, but also more opportunities to have those leadership positions and actually owning the clubs,” said co-founder Bethany Cyrtmus-Davaul. “Our league is very big. It’s got 130 teams. It’s one of the largest women’s soccer leagues in the world. Katie, myself and Erin went to the all general manager meeting in February. It was probably about 130 men and 25-30 women. And we were three of the women. That feels very liberating in a way that we can help, maybe hopefully carve this path for more people to do something like this. It just brings a different energy.”
Not only is it a different type of environment for the women in this women-owned club, but it also makes a significant difference for the players on the team.
“Women are the only people who are going to understand another women’s experience going through all this. I’ve never been in a position all my life where I had actual women leaders. It’s always been men at the top. It’s different. Especially the way, the dynamic of sports, how it’s treated and everything, and how women athletes are treated, we really just don’t get that much often,” said Austin Rise co-captain Hanna Sanderson. “It’s cool to have women at the top who have understood the entire experience with us, through different challenges and are able to create solutions for us that best fit us and don’t fit the mold that’s been set before.”
While preparing for the season and finding players to represent the team, the co-founders wanted to start from their very community in Austin.
“There was a lot of talent in Austin. We’ve seen people try to recruit and get out-of-state-players. First thing that we did was actually put together a player interest form and put that out and let players come to us. We wanted to see who was here, who was interested in soccer, who is interested in playing at this level. We ended up getting over a hundred responses,” said Reed. “So we got very awesome engagement….in the future, we want to build a recruitment program.”
Of course, entering their first year in a new league with significantly more teams provides a new kind of challenge.
“We’re going from a league with 40 teams to 130. Some of these teams are the reserve squad for the NWSL team. So the competition is going to be, we expect, to be extremely fierce,” said Cyrtmus-Davaul.
While preseason started nearly five weeks ago, some university players weren’t able to join the team until a week or two ago. However, having a later start will not hold the team back.
“We just want to make a name. Make it known here,” said Sanderson.
Also setting themselves apart from other teams, some of the founders of Austin Rise are playing on the field together as well.
“Something that we talked about from the start was making sure there wouldn’t be any kind of conflict of players. That was very top-of-mind intentionally because we wanted to make sure there would never be another player or anyone else who perceived us as having some type of advantage in the club,” said Reed.
Austin Rise says the team would not exist if it were not for the help and support from the community throughout the last year.
“Community is an incredibly important pillar. Really, we wouldn’t be here without the support we’ve gotten from the community. Since our story came out last year, Alissa Ziemianski, president of Austin Co-ed Soccer Association, she has been instrumental in connecting us to other resources and people… Los Verdes is actually the fan club for Austin FC’s men’s team, but they have also been so supportive of us and building us up, invited us to some launch parties, and their band will be coming to our home opener. Just that type of dynamic is monumental to us,” said Cyrtmus-Davaul.
Austin Rise’s first home game will be on Sunday, June 11 at 7 p.m. at House Park, the former home of both the USL and PDL iterations of the Austin Aztex. They will be taking on the San Antonio Blossoms. For more information and tickets, click here.