How is it going? Greetings to President Beilock, Provost, Dean, Barnard faculty, trustees, and the other honorees: Katherine Johnson, Anna Quindlen, and Rhea Suh. And to each of the 619 bad-ass women of the
Barnard graduating class of 2018: Congratulations you guys! Congratulations! Doesn’t it feel like the second you figure
anything out in life, it ends and you’re forced to start all over again? Experts call these times of life, “transitions.” I call them terrifying. I went through a terrifying transition recently
when I retired from soccer. The world tries to distract us from our fear
during these transitions by creating fancy ceremonies for us. This is your fancy ceremony. Mine was the ESPYS, a nationally televised
sports award show. I had to get dressed up for that just like
you got dressed up for this: but they sent me a really expensive fancy stylist. It doesn’t look like you guys got one. Sorry about that. So it went like this: ESPN called and told
me they were going to honor me with their inaugural icon award. I was humbled, of course, to be regarded as
an icon. Did I mention that I’m an icon? I received my award along with two other incredible
athletes: basketball’s Kobe Bryant and football’s Peyton Manning. We all stood on stage together and watched
highlights of our careers with the cameras rolling and the fans cheering - and I looked
around and had a moment of extreme awe. I felt so grateful to be there- included in
the company of Kobe and Peyton. I had a momentary feeling of having arrived:
like we women had finally made It. Then the applause ended and It was time for
the three of us to exit stage left. And as I watched those men walk off the stage,
it dawned on me that the three of us were stepping into very
different futures. Each of us, Kobe, Peyton and I - we made the
same sacrifices, we shed the same amount of blood sweat and tears, we’d
left it all on the field for decades with the same ferocity, talent and commitment - but
our retirements wouldn’t be the same at all. Because Kobe and Peyton walked away from their
careers with something I didn’t have: enormous bank accounts. Because of that they had something else I
didn’t have: freedom. Their hustling days were over; and mine were just
beginning. Later that night, back in my hotel room, I
laid in bed and thought: this isn’t just about me, and this isn’t just about soccer. We talk a lot about the pay gap. We talk about how we overall US women earn 80 cents for every dollar paid to men, black women in America earn 63 cents, while Latinas earn 54 cents for every dollar paid to white men. What we need to talk more about is the aggregate
and compounding effects of the pay gap on women’s lives. Over time, the pay gap means women are able
to invest less and save less so they have to work longer. When we talk about what the pay gap costs
us, lets be clear. It costs us our very lives. And it hit me that I'd spent most of my
time during my career the same way I'd spent my time on that ESPYS stage. Just feeling grateful. Grateful to be one of the only women to have
a seat at the table. I was so grateful to receive any respect at
all for myself that I often missed opportunities to demand equality for all of us. But as you know - women of Barnard - CHANGE. IS. HERE. Women are learning that we can be grateful
for what we have and also demand what we deserve. Like all little girls, I was taught to be
grateful. I was taught to keep my head down, stay on
the path, and get my job done. I was freaking little red riding hood. You know the fairy tale: it’s just one iteration
of the warning stories girls are told the world over. Little Red Riding Hood heads off through the
woods and is given strict instructions: Stay on the path. Don’t talk to anybody. Keep your head down hidden underneath your
handmaid’s tale cape. And she does…at first. But then she dares to get a little curious
and she ventures off the path.That’s of course when she encounters the big bad wolf
and all hell breaks loose. The message is clear: Don’t be curious,
don’t make trouble, don’t say too much or BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN. I stayed on the path out of fear—not of
being eaten by a wolf—but of being cut, being benched, losing my paycheck. If I could go back and tell my younger self
one thing It would be this: “Abby, You were never little red riding
hood, you were always, the wolf.” So when I was entrusted with the honor of
speaking here today: I decided that the most important thing for
me to say to you is this: BARNARD WOMEN - CLASS OF 2018 - WE ARE THE WOLVES. In 1995, around the year of your birth, wolves - yes, weird - wolves were re-introduced into Yellowstone National Park after being absent for seventy years. In those years, the number of deer had skyrocketed
because they were unchallenged, alone at the top of the food chain. They grazed away and reduced the vegetation,
so much that the river banks were eroding. Once the wolves arrived, they thinned out
the deer through hunting. But more significantly, their presence changed
the behavior of the deer. Wisely, the deer started avoiding the valleys
and the vegetation in those places regenerated. Trees quintupled in just six years. Birds and beavers started moving in. The river dams the beavers built provided
habitats for otters and ducks and fish. The animal ecosystem regenerated. But that wasn’t all. The rivers actually changed as well. The plant regeneration stabilized the river
banks so they stopped collapsing. The rivers steadied - all because of the wolves’
presence. See what happened here? The wolves - who were feared as a threat to
the system - turned out to be its salvation. Barnard women - are y'all picking up what I’m
laying down here? Women are feared as a threat to our system
- and we will also be our salvation. Our landscape is overrun with archaic ways
of thinking about women, about people of color, about the “other,” about the rich and
the poor, about the the powerful and the powerless - and these ways of thinking are destroying
us. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We will not little red riding hood our way
through life. We will unite our pack, storm the valley together
and change the whole bloody system. Throughout my life, my pack has been my team. Teams need a unifying structure - and the
best way to create one collective heartbeat is to establish rules for your team to live
by. It doesn’t matter what specific page you’re
all on, just as long as you’re all on the same one. Here are 4 rules I’ve used to unite my pack
and lead them to gold. Rule One: MAKE FAILURE YOUR FUEL Here's something the best athletes understand-
but seems like a harder concept for non-athletes to grasp. Non athletes don’t know what to do with
the gift of failure. So they hide It, pretend it never happened,
reject It outright - and they end up wasting it. Listen: Failure is not something to be ashamed
of, It's something to be POWERED by. Failure is the highest octane fuel your life
can run on. You gotta learn to make failure your fuel. When I was on the youth national team, only
dreaming of playing alongside Mia Hamm Y'all know her? Good! I had the opportunity to visit the National
Team’s locker room. The thing that struck me most wasn’t my
heroes grass stained cleats or their names and numbers hanging above their lockers- It
was a picture. It was a picture that someone had taped next
to the door so that It would be the last thing every player saw before she headed out to
the training pitch. You might guess it was a picture of their
last big win, or of them standing on a podium accepting gold medals - But It wasn’t. It was a picture of their long time rival
- the Norwegian national team celebrating - after having just beaten the USA in the
1995 World Cup. In that locker room I learned that in order
to become my very best - on the pitch and off- I’d need to spend my life letting the
feelings and lessons of failure transform into my power. Failure is fuel. Fuel is power. Women - listen to me. We must embrace failure as our fuel instead
of accepting It as our destruction. As Michelle Obama recently said: “I wish that girls
could fail as well as men do and be okay. Because let me tell you watching men fail
up = its frustrating. Its frustrating to see men blow it and win. And we hold ourselves to these crazy, crazy
standards.” Wolf Pack: FAIL UP. BLOW IT, AND WIN. Rule Number Two: LEAD FROM THE BENCH Imagine this: you’ve scored more goals than
any human being on the planet- female or male. You’ve co-captained and led Team USA in
almost every category for the past decade. And you and your coach sit down and decide
together that you won’t be a starter in your last world cup for Team USA. So….That sucked. You’ll feel benched sometimes, too. You’ll be passed over for the promotion,
taken off the project - you might even be finding yourself holding a baby instead of a briefcase - watching your colleagues “get ahead.” Here’s what’s important. You are allowed to be disappointed when It
feels like life’s benched you. What you aren’t allowed to do is miss your
opportunity to lead from the bench. During that last World Cup - my teammates
told me that my presence, my support, my vocal and relentless belief in them from the bench
is what gave them the confidence they needed to win us that championship. If you’re not a leader on the bench, then don’t call yourself a leader on the field. You’re either a leader everywhere or nowhere. And by the way: the fiercest leading I’ve
ever seen has been done between mother and child. Parenting is no bench. It just might be the big game. Wolf Pack: Wherever you’re put, lead from
there. RULE NUMBER THREE: CHAMPION EACH OTHER During every 90 minute soccer match there
are a few magical moments when the ball actually hits the back of the net and a goal is scored. When this happens It means that everything
has come together perfectly- the perfect pass the perfectly timed run, every player in the
right place at exactly the right time: all of this culminating in a moment in which one
player scores the goal. What happens next on the field is what transforms
a bunch of individual women into a team. Teammates from all over the field rush toward
the goal scorer. It appears that we’re celebrating her: but
what we’re REALLY celebrating is every player, every coach, every practice, every sprint,
every doubt, and even every failure that this one single goal represents. You will not always be the goal scorer. And when you are not- you better be rushing towards her. Women must champion each other. Yes. This can be difficult for us. Women have been pitted against each other
since the beginning of time for that one seat at the table. Scarcity has been planted inside of us and
among us. This scarcity is not our fault. But it is our problem. And It is within our power to create abundance
for women where scarcity used to live. As you go out into the world: Amplify each
others voices. Demand seats for women, people of color and
all marginalized people at every table where decisions are made. Call out each other’s wins and just like
we do on the field: claim the success of one woman as a collective success for all women. Joy. Success. Power. These are not pies where a bigger slice for
her means a smaller slice for you. These are infinite. In any revolution - the way to make something
true- starts with believing it is. Let’s claim infinite joy, success, and power
- together. WOLF PACK: Her Victory is your Victory. Celebrate it. FOURTH RULE: DEMAND THE BALL. When I was a teenager, I was lucky enough
to play with one of my heroes - Michelle Akers. That's right. She needed a place to train since there was
not yet a women’s professional league. Michelle was tall like I am, built like I’d
be built and the most courageous soccer player I’d ever seen play. She personified every one of my dreams. We were playing a small sided scrimmage - 5
against 5 - we were eighteen years old and she was - Michelle Akers - a chiseled, thirty
year old powerhouse. For the first three quarters of the game,
she was taking it easy on us, coaching us, teaching us about spacing, timing and the
tactics of the game. But by the fourth quarter: she realized that because
of all of this coaching- her team was losing by three goals. In that moment: A light switched on inside
of her. She ran back to her own goalkeeper, stood
one yard away from her and screamed: GIVE. ME. THE EFFIING. BALL. And the goalkeeper gave her the effing ball. And she took the ball and she dribbled through
our entire effing team and she scored. Now this game was winners keepers, so if you
scored you got the ball back. So, as soon as Michelle scored, she ran back
to her goalie, stood a yard away from her and screamed: GIVE ME THE BALL The keeper did. And again she dribbled though us and scored. And then she did It again. And she took her team to victory. Michelle Akers knew what her team needed from
her at every moment of the game. Don't forget that until the fourth quarter-
leadership had required Michelle to help, support and teach but eventually leadership
called her to demand the ball. Wolf pack. At this moment in history leadership is calling
us to say: GIVE ME THE EFFING BALL. GIVE ME THE EFFING JOB. GIVE ME THE SAME PAY THE GUY NEXT TO
ME GETS. GIVE ME THE PROMOTION. GIVE ME THE MICROPHONE. GIVE ME THE OVAL OFFICE. GIVE ME THE RESPECT I’VE EARNED AND GIVE
IT TO MY WOLF PACK TOO. In closing, I want to leave you with the most
important thing I’ve learned since leaving soccer. When I retired, my sponsor Gatorade surprised
me at a meeting with the plan for my send off commercial. The message was this: Forget Me. They’d nailed It. They knew I wanted my legacy to be ensuring
the future success of the sport I’d dedicated my life to. If my name were forgotten, that would mean
that the women who came behind me were breaking records, winning championships and pushing
the game to new heights. When I shot that commercial I cried. A year later, I found myself coaching my ten
year old daughter’s soccer team. I’d coached them all the way to the championship. (Hashtag humblebrag.) One day I was warming up the team, doing a
little shooting drill. I was telling them a story about when I retired. And one of those little girls looked up at
me and said: “So what did you retire from?” And I looked down at her and I said: “SOCCER.” And she said: “Oh. Who did you play for?” And I said: “THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA." And she said: “Oh. Does that mean you know Alex Morgan?” Be careful what you wish for, Barnard. They forgot me. But that’s okay. Being forgotten in my retirement didn’t
scare me. What scared me was losing the identity the
game gave me. I defined myself as Abby Wambach, soccer player-
the one who showed up and gave 100 percent to my team and fought along my wolf pack
to make a better future for the next generation. Without soccer who would I be? A few months after retirement, I began creating
my new life. I met Glennon and our three children and I
became a wife, a mother, a business owner and an activist. And you know who I am now? I’m still the same Abby. I still show up and give 100 percent -now
to my new pack - and I still fight everyday to make a better future for the next generation. You see soccer didn’t make me who I was. I brought who I was to soccer, and I get to
bring who I am wherever I go. And guess what - so do you. As you leave here today and everyday going
forward: Don’t just ask yourself- what do I want to do? Ask yourself: WHO do I want to be? Because the most important thing I've learned, is that what you do will never define you. Who you are always will. And who you are - Barnard women - are the
wolves. Surrounding you today is your wolf pack. Look around. Go ahead, you can do it. Don’t lose each other. Leave these sacred grounds united, storm the
valleys together, and be our salvation.
Here's the transcription if you don't want to spend 25 minutes watching the video: https://barnard.edu/commencement/archives/2018/abby-wambach-remarks
Very lucky to have her as a commencement speaker. Truly inspiring. I would have damn near fainted and fangirled super-hard if she was at my graduation.
Thank you for linking to that source. The version on Time magazine's headline was about how failure is good for women. The speech is really about how women are powerful and dangerous to patriarchy.