Daughter of Super Bowl champ (and late-comer to soccer) makes own name with KC Current

Some years ago, a middle-schooler was kicking the ball around at halftime of her brother’s soccer game in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

A coach approached the girl’s parents and asked what team she played for. The girl was Elyse Bennett, who would one day be drafted as the Kansas City Current’s top National Women’s Soccer League pick for 2022.

In fact, at the time, Bennett wasn’t playing soccer at all. She’d never even played on an organized team. As a child, she balanced many activities and sports — competitive cheerleadering, basketball, volleyball, track and field — but not soccer.

Not back then. Not yet.

“Elyse has always been extremely determined in whatever she sets her mind to pursue,” said Mindy Bennett, Elyse’s mother.

Elyse’s father, Edgar Bennett, played in the NFL for seven years, winning a Super Bowl XXXI ring with the Green Bay Packers. (He’s currently the wide receivers coach for the Las Vegas Raiders.)

Her brother also played multiple sports, but he excelled in soccer. And that was Elyse Bennett’s first exposure to the game. The two would soon become competitive in soccer, like they were in practically everything else.

“We played a ton of board games in our house,” their mother recalled, “and everything was high stakes.”

Today, Elyse Bennett credits that competitive home atmosphere with fostering her drive and determination.

“The competitive nature of our household was something that ran through everyone,” she said. “My parents made sure that I stayed humble and just kept my head down and grinded throughout my whole journey.”

And what a grind it has been.

Elyse Bennett was a relative late-comer to soccer, but once she began playing she was hooked. She joined a team shortly after that halftime conversation between her parents and the inquisitive coach at her brother’s game.

Usually, girls and boys with an eye on playing Division I soccer have made their way to competitive teams by the U-12 level. But by the time she started playing college soccer, Bennett had just over four years of playing experience.

“Every coach that we talked to was like, ‘Where? where have you been?’” Mindy Bennett said. “A lot of girls already had a name and reputation coming in, and no one had any idea of who Elyse was.”

Asked for one word to describe her playing style, Elyse Bennett offers this: gritty.

“I think that I’ll come out every single day and fight and fight to win for my teammates and myself,” she said. “I feel like I come in with that competitive nature every single day.”

She developed that grit through her competitive home life, but also through how she learned to handle adversity. She tore an ACL during her senior year of high school, which for someone already late to the recruiting scene could’ve been devastating.

She tore the ACL again during her sophomore season at Washington State University. But after her second injury, she at least she knew what she’d dealing with during the rehab process.

“it wasn’t any easier mentally,” she said. “But it was a little bit easier physically because I knew exactly what needed to be done to get to where I was.”

Bennett played in 93 games during her career at Washington State, second most in program history. She ranks sixth all-time in goals there and would become the seventh overall pick in the 2022 NWSL Draft.

Now a professional soccer player, Bennett had little time to adjust to the pro game before being thrust into the starting lineup when Lynn Williams, a star player acquired by the Current this past offseason, went down with a season-ending injury.

Big shoes to fill, for sure. But in four NWSL Challenge Cup games, she’s done it. Bennett recorded four assists in six games, including a dazzling run-and-pass to help the Current clinch the tournament’s Central Division crown.

She has all the physical tools to succeed as a pro-soccer forward She’s tall, fast and strong and her comfort level on the ball is growing.

It’s apparent that this 22-year-old late-comer to the game has only begun to show what she can do.

“Every year that I watch her play, she’s better than she was the year before,” her mother said. “I’m not sure she knows what her ceiling is yet.”

This story was originally published May 3, 2022 at 3:01 PM with the headline "Daughter of Super Bowl champ (and late-comer to soccer) makes own name with KC Current."