The Burlington-based Vermont Green FC will host two women’s soccer exhibition games this June. Their coach is one of the best midfielders to play for the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team, Sam Mewis.
Mewis hosts The Women's Game podcast on the Men In Blazers Media Network — you can catch her at Higher Ground on Friday, Jun. 6, for a live taping. She has won a FIFA Women’s World Cup, multiple National Women’s Soccer League championships, and an Olympic bronze medal. She coached the first Vermont Green’s women’s exhibition game in summer 2024.
What do you think of Vermont's soccer scene?
"I moved here about a year and a half ago from Massachusetts, and obviously soccer has been a huge part of my life. It's basically been everything that I've been focusing on since I was like 10 or 11 years old. And so, to move to Vermont, as I was retiring from professional soccer, I kind of expected soccer to feel a little bit further away and a little bit more distant from my life. Obviously it's what I do for my job, but I didn't expect to move to kind of a hotbed for soccer.
Coming here, I was immediately introduced to the UVM teams, to Vermont Green, to just the general community around this area that is so passionate about soccer... It's been so exciting and so unexpected, but something that's become really special to me and that I'm excited to get to share more with the community."
What was your upbringing like?
"My dad played soccer in college. My mom played basketball at Northeastern. They were both great athletes. They still are. They actually are infamous for their tandem bicycle — they go on long tandem bicycle rides. They're very athletic. My parents are incredible. But we get the question all the time, like, what did your parents do? We're the only kids, and they created two professional soccer players [Mewis's sister Kristie also played for the USWNT].
And honestly, they didn't pressure us. They supported us a lot. They always asked if we wanted to travel and go on these big trips we were going on. Do you want to miss school? Do you want to miss prom? Do you want to go in with the national team? And we always said yes."
How are you feeling about your retirement?
"I did have this pretty serious contact cartilage injury in 2017 that I was told right away would be a serious issue, probably for the rest of my life. But I was actually able to play at a really high level for about five years on that injury, which, in retrospect, was kind of a miracle.
Obviously, it's not something I wish on anybody. Cutting my career short was really devastating for me, but I think that it's partly why coming and moving here to Vermont, to this new place where I have found such great community, and where the soccer community has really embraced me, comes as such a pleasant and unexpected surprise."
Where's your Olympic medal?
"It's in my office somewhere, maybe on display behind me and my podcast setup. But it is one of those things that is so important and monumental that you almost want to lock it away and, like, not let anything spill on it, and not let it get lost and not let the dog chew on it. So it's definitely safe, but I don't look at it a lot."
Favorite pre-game meal?
"We travel for games all the time, especially with the national team. So you're always sleeping and eating in a hotel, and one of the things that every hotel can make really well is pancakes. So I think over time, I just learned to rely on the carbs and the energy that I got from having pancakes three or four hours before a game."
Broadcast live on Wednesday, June 4, 2025, at noon; rebroadcast at 7 p.m.
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