Welcome to the Scuff Podcast where we talk about US soccer. Our guest today is a woman who has had a profound influence on soccer in this country and you've probably never heard of her.

Her name is Marty Mankamire.

She is an 89 year old semi-retired real estate agent in Colorado and she was one of the

key actors right there in the beginning when the

U.S. women's national team was created.

Hello Marty, thank you for your time and welcome to Scuffed.

Thank you so much for thinking of me.

I'm looking forward to this.

Before we start, I should acknowledge some people.

William Gordon, mutual acquaintance of ours of the American Soccer Corps,

has helped a lot with research and background.

And I'll be relying on passages

from Jerry Longman's girls of summer

and Caitlin Murray's the national team.

So acknowledgments to them as well.

First of all, how did you get involved in soccer in the first place?

And why get involved with youth soccer administration in Colorado?

I had girls who started playing at the recreational level and I have

the kind of an inquisitive nature that got interested in governance.

And so, because I had worked for many years,

as you know in non sport related events but I had a business

background and things like those years they called it personnel management it's called

...