Overview:
Carin Jennings-Gabarra, a UCSB alumna, scored six goals at the first FIFA Women’s World Cup in 1991 and won the Golden Ball as the tournament’s Most Valuable Player
The magnitude of the moment went right over Linda Dorn’s head … quite literally.
UC Santa Barbara’s All-America midfielder was left awestruck when Michelle Akers-Stahl of the U.S. Women’s National Team leaped for a head ball during their 1991 exhibition soccer match at Harder Stadium.
“I was pretty good in the air,” she told Noozhawk, “but Michelle Akers just soars over me and puts in a header, and I’m like, ‘Wow!’
“At every level and every position, they were just elevated over our team.”
But that U.S. women’s team was heads above the rest of the world, too.
It used the Oct. 19, 1991, victory over the NCAA-ranked Gauchos — a 10-0 blowout — to kick-start its run to its first World Cup championship just three weeks later in China.
“A little hurtful for the ego … 10-0 was not the outcome we were looking for,” the former Gaucho said.
But Dorn, now Linda Meyer, soon realized what she and her UCSB teammates had been up against while serving as a steppingstone to history.
The 1991 World Cup served as a coming-out party for such legendary women’s stars as Akers, Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy, April Heinrichs, Brandi Chastain and a four-time Gaucho All-American named Carin Jennings.
“I don’t think that hit us until later when they were actually playing in the World Cup,” said Meyer, the wife of former UCSB basketball star Mike Meyer. “We were like, ‘What?’
“And now, looking back … just watching documentaries and knowing all those people, it makes me realize I should’ve taken more in when I was around them.
“But I can now really appreciate where they’ve been and how far they’ve taken the sport of soccer.”
The four-time World Cup champions are taking it back to Harder Stadium at 7 p.m. Tuesday for an international friendly match against Chile.
“I can’t believe it’s been that long,” said Meyer, who now works at UCSB as the director of Storke Student Communications. “It was an amazing experience playing against them.
“Playing in front of 3,000 people (3,274 to be exact) was a real plus for us, for sure … and what a great way to start off the United States women’s team.”
U.S. Soccer expects a crowd of at least 14,000 for Tuesday’s match, which will be televised by TBS. (A few tickets are still available for purchase online at ussoccer.com. Early arrival is encouraged due to parking conditions).
Letter Perfect
Aaron Heifetz, director of communications for the USWNT, was also at that 1991 match at Harder Stadium … but on the home team’s bench. He was serving then as the assistant to UCSB head coach Tad Bobak.
“To come back 30-something years later as a press officer for the national team is special,” Heifetz said. “It’s something you don’t get to do often in your life, to return where you started and experience it over again.
“So I’ll have a good time, and I know the 14,000-or-whatever people who will hopefully be here will have a good time, too.
“It should be a great event for Santa Barbara.”
Heifetz knew what the Gauchos were facing in 1991.
The Americans had qualified for the World Cup six months earlier by trouncing five opponents by a combined score of 49-0 at the CONCACAF Women’s Championships in Haiti.
The only country to play the Americans closer than UCSB was Canada, which was out-shot 24-5 in the final in a 5-0 victory for the United States.
“When would the national team ever play a college team again? … It would never happen,” Heifetz said. “But Tad knew the head coach of the national team, Anson Dorrance.
“So we sent Anson a letter — like an actual letter that you type up on one of those old-type maps.
“Somehow Anson agreed, somehow U.S. Soccer agreed, somehow the athletic director at that time — his name was John Kasser — agreed.”
The UCSB women’s soccer program, in only its seventh year of existence, was on its way to its sixth NCAA tournament appearance that season.
Jennings, now Carin Gabarra, had set the bar high for Linda Dorn Meyer and her teammates after finishing her career in the fall of 1986 with then-NCAA records of 102 goals and 60 assists.
The 1991 Gauchos followed their USWNT match during the next two weeks with consecutive victories of 4-0 over Cal State East Bay, 2-0 over Cal and 2-1 over UConn.
“We had a really small, tight-knit group,” Meyer said. “My senior year we started with 14 and two ended up having knee injuries, so we went most of the season with 12.
“There was a time we had to start a game with 10 players.”
But three of Meyer’s teammates — seniors Laurie Hill and Jan Urich, UCSB’s goalkeeper, along with freshman Julie Bushman — joined her on the All-Far West Region team.
“We were a gritty little group that played a lot of Brazilian style, so we possessed the ball a lot,” Meyer. “There was just such a love for the game that came from Tad and Aaron.”
Harder Times
Harder Stadium in 1991 wasn’t yet the glimmering “Soccer Heaven” it later became. It had been built in 1966 for football, a sport that UCSB didn’t drop until that fall of 1991.
The field’s drains, entrenched into the football sidelines, were in play when Harder Stadium’s field was converted into a wider pitch for soccer.
Giant bulbs also would occasionally drop out of old light standards, with one nearly striking an unsuspecting jogger.
All was fixed and remodeled after coach Tim Vom Steeg’s men’s team made the College Cup final in 2004 and won the NCAA championship in 2006.
Harder Stadium was improved enough to play host to the men’s College Cup in both 2010 and 2018.
“First of all, this field now is in extraordinary shape,” Meyer said. “When I played, it had this big mound, so if I would hit a long ball, it would take off and roll off before anyone could touch it, I don’t care if you were Mia Hamm.
“Now it’s amazing, so much time and effort has been put into this stadium. I come to men’s games and women’s games, and I think it’s going to be so exciting just to see it full.”
Playing on a sub-par field in 1991 was nothing new for the low-budget U.S. Women’s National Team.
Its players received a daily per diem of just $10 and were housed in a cockroach-infested hotel during the CONCACAF championships in Haiti.
They even had to take their baths in the hotel’s swimming pool.
They wore USA uniforms that had been handed down from the junior boys program. FIFA even reduced the playing time of their matches to 80 minutes from 90.
But Jennings-Gabarra, who has coached women’s soccer at the U.S. Naval Academy for the last 33 years, said nothing could distract them from focusing on their ultimate goal.
“You could change the minutes, you can put us bad fields, but we were all used to not having much,” she said. “We had to grow up in a Title IX world where we were just now getting an even playing field in a lot of respects.
“We were excited that we had the opportunity, and we were going to make the most of it to win that world championship.”
Formidable Foe
Meyer and her Gaucho teammates were excited when they first learned they would be playing the national team.
“The reaction was, ‘That’s awesome! … There’s going to be people here!’” she said. “And anytime we could play a night game at Harder Stadium, we’re like all in, of course.”
But the prospect grew more intimidating, she admitted, when the match drew closer.
Meyer heard one prediction of a 15-0 Gaucho defeat.
“We were all, as we should be, a little scared,” she said.
But she remembers the Gauchos holding their own in the run of play.
“I never actually thought we were getting killed until I looked up at the scoreboard,” she said. “Everyone on our team at the time was really good, but everyone else on their team was a little bit better.
“That combination, and just their executing … I think they had maybe 11, 12 chances on goal, and they scored 10 of them. We had maybe 2½ real chances and we didn’t execute and score, so that’s how you get a 10-0.
“Afterward, I feel like there was a sense of pride that we got to be in that position to play them and also that we felt pretty good about what we did.”
The national team continued on to sweep through the World Cup, beating Norway 2-1 in the final before a crowd of 63,000 at Tianhe Stadium in Guangzhou, China.
The forward attack of Jennings-Gabarra on the left, Heinrichs on the right, and Akers-Stahl in the middle sliced through defenses so effectively that the Chinese media dubbed them “The Triple-Edged Sword.”
Jennings-Gabarra, who recorded a hat trick during the 5-2 semifinal win over Germany, wound up winning the Golden Ball as the tournament’s Most Valuable Player.
“Her greatest quality is that she can beat defenses on her own,” Dorrance said at the time. “She is creative, and has great athletic ability and agility.
“She has great speed, can change direction quickly and still keep control of the ball.”
The dignitary who presented Jennings-Gabarra with the Golden Ball simply called her “the female Pelé,” and who would know better?
The presenter was Pelé, the Brazilian soccer wizard who was named in 1999 as the “Athlete of the Century” by the International Olympic Committee.
Jennings retired from playing after winning a gold medal at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. A crowd of 76,481 watched the Americans defeat China 2-1 in the final.
The popularity of women’s soccer took off with that triumph, leading to America’s dramatic, penalty-kick victory over China in the 1999 World Cup final. A crowd of 90,000 roared its approval at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.
The jersey that Chastain ripped off after scoring the game-winning penalty kick was, after all, no hand-me-down from the junior boys team.
The United States has since also won World Cup crowns in 2015 and 2019, providing the pioneering Jennings-Gabarra with immense satisfaction.
Having women’s soccer enter the mainstream of the sports world, she said, was “what everyone in the program dreamed of.”
Bound for Brazil
The USWNT program is on a successful rebound from losing in the Round of 16 at the 2023 World Cup in New Zealand.
Emma Hayes took the coaching reins in 2024 to guide a revamped roster to the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Paris.
She’s now in early preparation for the 2027 World Cup in Brazil.
“The team that’s coming is on the younger side, but Trinity Rodman, our star forward, is making her return,” Heifetz said of Tuesday’s match.
Trinity Rain Moyer-Rodman, the daughter of former NBA basketball star Dennis Rodman, also plays forward for the Washington Spirit of the National Women’s Soccer League.
“This will be the second game of the year on the road to World Cup qualifying in the fall, so super-important in terms of getting the team back on the field, back together,” Heifetz said.
“But it’s also important for some young players to show our coach, Emma Hayes, that they have what it takes to get into that top group.”
Their first match of the year was an international friendly against Paraguay on Saturday at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson.
U.S. Soccer had been struggling to find a venue for the Chile match until Heifetz joined the conversation.
“The guy who schedules our games told me, ‘I’m having trouble with the 27th … The other stadium in L.A. isn’t available … Arizona’s not available … San Diego, San José, Denver … they’re not available,’” Heifetz recalled.
“So I googled Harder Stadium, got the link, put it in his Slack and hit send,” he added, referring to the cloud-based team communication platform.
“The next thing I hear is, ‘There’s a 15,000-seat grass stadium in Santa Barbara?’
“And I’m, ‘Yeah, there is! Harder Stadium! … Let’s go!’”
