Sydney Leroux: An Inspiration for Biracial Children to Pursue their Dreams

Sydney Leroux is a Canadian-born professional American soccer player.
An Olympic gold medalist and 2015 FIFA World Cup winner, Leroux attended Johnston Heights Secondary School in Surrey where she mainly focused on soccer, but also in track and field.
After winning numerous soccer championships throughout high school, Sydney eventually became the youngest player to ever join the Vancouver Whitecaps squad at the age of 15, going on to win a championship with Team BC at the Canada Games in 2005.
Born in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada on May 7, 1990 of an American baseball player named Ray Chadwick, who had pitched seven games for the California Angels in 1986, and a Canadian mother by the name of Sandi Leroux, also a baseball player, having played as third baseman for Canada’s softball team at the 1987 Pan American Games, her parents split up three months into the pregnancy and when born, Sydney was raised primarily by her mother.
Sydney had always wanted to play for the United States national soccer team right from a young age, so afterwards, she moved to Scotsdale, Arizona in order to pursue that dream and there, attended UCLA, where she joined the Bruins soccer team.
After graduation, Sydney was the number one pick by the Atlanta Beat in the 2012 WPS (Women’s Professional Soccer) Draft. Unfortunately, the league went belly up before she even had a chance to play, so she decided to join the Seattle Sounders Women in the W-League instead. The very same year, she was also a member of the U.S. Olympic Women’s Soccer Team, which went on to win the gold medal in a 2-0 victory over New Zealand. She was even responsible for scoring one of the goals in a quarter final match against New Zealand. Since then went on to sign with the Boston Breakers for the inaugural year of the National Women’s Soccer League, and has continued to play with them since.
Sydney is proud of her biracial heritage and doesn’t hesitate to truthfully speak about her experiences growing up with a white mother and a black father. She once revealed that she never had any female athlete role model as a kid — let alone multiracial ones — and hopes she can be an inspiration for biracial children everywhere to pursue their dreams.