The lifelong education of USMNT goalkeeper (and Ha...
Key takeaways
- Yes, there's going to be a lot of stuff in this story about his father.
- But his mom, Marcia Geary Wolicki, was the one who supported his soccer dreams, the ballast to all the academic and social ambitions projected onto him;
- "A lot of stuff is about my dad," Matt Freese says in his deep, slightly husky voice.
Why this matters: a sports story that could shift standings, legacies, or fan conversations.
Yes, there's going to be a lot of stuff in this story about his father. He gets that. It's sort of inevitable. The medical genius father of the starting U.S. men's national team goalkeeper, who frowned on his son's career choice and then died too young -- it's narratively irresistible, and we won't be resisting it here.
But his mom, Marcia Geary Wolicki, was the one who supported his soccer dreams, the ballast to all the academic and social ambitions projected onto him; the one who mostly raised him and his three older siblings while their dad worked endless hours, after his parents divorced when Matt was 8; the one who ended the fights and dealt with the boys throwing blueberries against the wall at dinner, or sliding down the stairs in sleeping bags; the one driving him to his high school at 5 a.m. because Matt wanted to get extra reps and workouts in.
"A lot of stuff is about my dad," Matt Freese says in his deep, slightly husky voice. "I really owe so much of it to her. I would not want her to not get those words about her because of the more optically pleasing story about my dad and his passing."