Emily Boyd, selected 15th in the 2018 NWSL Draft by the Chicago Red Stars, reflects on her career and the food choices in her new home town.
Emily Boyd’s career has proceeded on a pair of parallel tracks.
Thursday afternoon, the Seattle native and standout Cal-Berkeley goalkeeper heard her name called by the Chicago Red Stars with the 15th selection in the 2018 NWSL Draft.
The role — as potential understudy to American top choice goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher — is one Boyd finds exciting.
“Playing with the best, you can only get better,” Boyd said of her new professional role, standing backstage following the selection, a Red Stars scarf around her neck. “And she’s number one with the U.S. I’ve only found that playing with people at that level helps to hopefully bring you up to that standard someday.”
But Boyd has another vital task to keep up: making sure the 3,183 followers (as of this writing) of her Instagram @EBoydsFood are fully informed about the healthy eating choices in her new stomping grounds.
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For her part, Boyd didn’t torture herself with lots of advanced scouting of restaurants near all 10 NWSL teams, preferring to wait it out. Still, she acknowledged that means a lot of catching up to do.
“I’m really excited to keep @EBoydsFood alive, obviously. But I didn’t do a lot of research because I had absolutely no idea where I was going,” Boyd said. “So I just thought I’d wait it out. And now I’m going to do a lot of research on all the healthy places nearby.”
She’ll have time, and she had the ability — she’s already completed her coursework at Berkeley. And so she allowed herself to reflect on exactly what this moment had come to mean for her and why, a luxury that often escapes a person in the first moments after their lifelong dreams have come true.
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“I think that going into college, if there wasn’t a league, I might not have aspired to be as great, not knowing what’s next,” Boyd said. “But having a league you can step into, and pursue what you’re really working hard for, you really want to push hard every day, to be really great, so you hopefully can play in this league you’ve been looking toward your whole collegiate career.”
She expressed confidence that she can come in and contribute right away, though she was careful to also note that players must “know their place in their teams.”
Still, she faltered, but only momentarily, when asked about the fundamental Chicago question: where is the best pizza found?
“Well, I’m doing Whole30, so I don’t eat pizza. I don’t know,” Boyd said, searching for the right answer. Chicago PR warned her that this answer could define her in the community, for good or ill.
Then Boyd found her footing. “Whatever is local, I’m sure is great,” she declared, a healthy answer indeed.