Denver — In their dwelling opener final month at Mile High Stadium, the brand-new Denver Summit FC girls’s soccer group of the NWSL went scoreless. But for one girl in attendance, it was a big win, as a result of she found a role model.
“I want to be a professional soccer player when I grow up,” Hayden Stine, 9, instructed CBS News of assembly Summit star Carson Pickett. “And she was able to do that. And it really fills me with hope that I’m able to as well.”
Stine was born with out most of her proper arm. So when she went to that sport and noticed Pickett, a participant similar to her, Hayden stated she noticed one thing in herself.
“Role models make you feel like you can do anything – just like them,” Hayden stated.
Since that assembly, Hayden’s “confidence has skyrocketed” her mom, Christina Hayden, disclosed.
“At school, on the soccer field, it’s through the roof,” Christina stated.
The household stated assembly Pickett was really life-altering. And but, Pickett says the assembly nearly by no means occurred.
“I didn’t want to be known as the girl with one arm that plays soccer,” Pickett instructed CBS News. “I just wanted to be known for the girl that plays soccer.”
For years, Pickett says she hid her arm in footage and prevented even speaking about her limb distinction. That was till in the future, when she says her mom instructed her she was lacking a possibility, and a function.
Pickett later wrote on social media, “Finding out that the journey is a lot less about myself and a lot more about the hearts I can touch along the way.”
Now, Pickett says she’s taken the “complete opposite” strategy.
“I want to meet all the kids, all the families, all the adults,” Pickett stated. “I want to meet everyone that I can.”
In truth, Pickett has now so embraced the role of role model, that this week she stunned Hayden at her group’s soccer follow.
Pickett plans to remain in contact, and possibly assist Hayden discover her function too, as a result of on the subject of role fashions, it takes one to be one.
On being a role model herself in the future, Hayden says: “Yes, I am up for it.”
