Amber Brooks is a defender who has played soccer professionally around the world for more than a decade. She was the first player signed by Dallas Trinity FC, whose home stadium will be the Cotton Bowl. Their first season in the nascent eight-team USL Super League begins this month.
Aside from being the answer to a great sports trivia question, what does it mean to you to be Dallas Trinity’s first player? It’s really special. To be completely honest, I thought I was going to play in the NWSL this year. I was a free agent, but for some reason teams weren’t interested in me. I’m at the end of my career and I had to reevaluate if playing was still something I wanted to do. My body feels great and I still love competing. I still have it in me. The team announcing me as their first signing really made me feel valued. They see what I can contribute and it makes me really excited to go into battle for the team.
The USL Super League season begins on August 17th and your first home game is September 7th. Will the air conditioning at the Cotton Bowl be working by then? I haven’t heard it, but honestly, I played four years in Houston, two seasons in South Australia, I don’t mind the heat. I know it might not be the most fun for the fans, but I can promise it’s worth sitting there and sweating when the air conditioning isn’t working yet.
There’s no air conditioning at the Cotton Bowl, Amber. I was just kidding. I thought they were renovating it. The hall, perhaps? I’m sorry. (laughs)
The Cotton Bowl is by far the largest venue in the USL. Are you worried that the 90,000 seats will remain empty? No, that’s nothing to worry about. Of course, the club needs to get as many people in the seats as possible. As players, we need to make football entertaining. We have to understand that. But I think Dallas has been waiting for this moment. And from the players’ perspective, the grass will be the most beautiful surface. And it’s such a historic stadium. My fiancé played football for Auburn. He said, “Wait a minute. You get to play in the Cotton Bowl? I didn’t get to.”
It was recently announced that every game will be streamed on Peacock. How excited are you? When I think about it from my family’s perspective, especially my grandmothers, I think it’s great. It’s a platform and it’s so easy. When I heard the news, I immediately texted Amanda (Vandervort, USL Super League president) and I was like, ‘Wow, well done.’ I was involved in the negotiations with the NWSL where it took almost 10 years for us to get a decent TV deal. To have Peacock right off the bat? I think that’s great.
You mentioned that you played for the Houston Dash. Now that you’re in Dallas, are you ready to absolutely hate Houston? No offense to the club or the fans, but I wasn’t a big fan of Houston. After Hurricane Harvey in 2017, we had to play a game in Dallas. I honestly thought it would be better for the club to move to Dallas. There are a lot more fans there. There is more football culture. In all my time there, we probably had 8,000 or 9,000 fans at the most, and our only game here, we had 12 or 13 at short notice.
They see what I can contribute and it gives me great joy to go into battle for the team.
Tell me about your mother, Jean. Did she bring you to the game? My parents both played at the college level, but my mom played right after they passed Title IX in 1972. She played at Ashland University in Ohio. They didn’t have a women’s team, so they had to allow her to play on the men’s team. I have all these photos of her at practice, and the guys would take their shirts off, and she would have her shirt on, of course. And I have older brothers who played. I started at a young age. I was 4.
High or low socks? Low! I mean, it looks like I don’t have shin guards on. I wear shin guards that are about 4 inches wide on the ankle sides. I cut my socks. This started in Houston. It’s too hot for high socks. I feel like they restrict my calves and cause cramps. So I hate shin guards and find them useless. Definitely low socks.
I saw on Instagram that you have a dog and a man with a black cowboy hat. What’s the story between the two? He’s an Australian Labradoodle we got when we lived there in Henley Beach, so we named him Henley. He turns 5 in September. He’s an 85 pound fluff ball. The guy in the hat is my fiancé, Jay. We met through his sister when we were teammates on the Seattle Reign in 2015. He’s from Montana. His dad was a real cowboy. This is his dad’s cowboy hat that he had refurbished. For our engagement, he gave me a custom cowboy hat from Burns Cowboy Shop in Utah. They do all the Yellowstone stuff. I guess I’m a cowgirl now.
This story originally appeared in the August issue of D Magazine with the headline “Can she do it?” Write to [email protected].
author
Tim is editor of D Magazinewhere he has worked since 2001. He won a National Magazine Award in…
