Quick Facts
Biography
Joy Lynn Fawcett (née Joy Biefeld; February 8, 1968) is a retired American professional soccer player. She earned 241 caps with the United States women's national soccer team (WNT) and retired from the WNT in 2004 as the highest scoring defender for the U.S. WNT. Fawcett was a founding member of the WUSA and was elected for induction into the National Soccer Hall of Fame in 2009. She was in the movie Soccer Mom as herself.
Youth
Fawcett grew up in southern California where she attended Edison High School in Huntington Beach, California. Her high school team won four league championships. She then attended the University of California, Berkeley where she played on the women's soccer team from 1987 to 1989. She was a three-time, first team All-American. She holds the school record for single-season scoring with 23 goals in 1987. Fawcett graduated from UC Berkeley in 1992 with a BA degree in Physical Education Cal inducted her into the school's Hall of Fame in October 1997.
Club
Fawcett and forward Carin Jennings both were members of the Manhattan Beach club women's soccer team Ajax in the late 1980s and early 1990s and routinely played at Columbia Park in Torrance, California. In 1991 and 1993, Ajax won the U.S. women's amateur championship. In 1998, she played for Ajax in the first season of the Women's Premier Soccer League. In 2001, Fawcett signed with the San Diego Spirit in the newly established Women's United Soccer Association. She missed most of the season due to an early season pregnancy. She rebounded in 2002 to lead the team in playing time with 19 games. In 2003, she had ankle injury early in the season but came back to play 18 games and gain the first team WUSA All - Star recognition.
National team
In 1991, Fawcett and Jennings helped the U.S. national team win the first women's World Cup that was held in China. She was the only WNT member to play all minutes of the 1995, 1999 and 2003 Women's World Cups, as well as the 1996 and 2000 Olympics. She retired from the WNT in 2004 as the highest scoring defender for the U.S. WNT.
She appeared in the HBO documentary Dare to Dream: The Story of the U.S. Women's Soccer Team.
Coaching career
She was the head coach at UCLA from 1993–1997.
Personal life
Joy and her husband Walter Fawcett have three daughters, Katelyn Rose (b. May 17, 1994), Carli (b. May 21, 1997), and Madilyn Rae (b. June 5, 2001). Their oldest daughter Katey played soccer for the University of Washington from 2012–2015. Her brother Eric Biefeld had a brief career with the United States men's national soccer team. She is also the current assistant soccer coach for the United States Deaf Women's National Team.