Midge Purce

MP

Professional Soccer Player

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NWSL champion and outspoken advocate for equity in women's sports.

Essentials

Full name
Midge Purce
Years active
2017-present
Position
Forward
Jersey number
23
Nationality
American
Hometown
Silver Spring, Maryland
College
Harvard University
Agent
{{agent name}}

midge's story

Midge Purce spent her adolescence at Poly Prep, a private school in Brooklyn, the daughter of a doctor, raised in the kind of comfort that is supposed to insulate a person from believing they don't belong somewhere. She played travel soccer anyway in rooms that were almost entirely white, and found that money and private schooling did nothing to change how coaches and parents looked at her. The tension between her upbringing and her experience in the sport is the detail that reframes her: privilege did not exempt her from having to prove she belonged, and it left her with a particular kind of clarity about which barriers in soccer are about access and which are about something else entirely.

She has played nearly every attacking position across her career, shifted at times into right back out of necessity, and never let the positional instability soften her game. She presses hard, talks constantly on the field, and plays with an edge that reads as confrontational to opponents and calculated to her coaches. Purce has been candid about a knee injury that derailed a stretch of her career and about the mental toll of trying to force her way back into national team consideration on a roster that has never lacked for attacking talent, a fight she has waged publicly rather than quietly.

Off the field she has built a reputation as one of the league's sharpest and least filtered voices, using social media to criticize her own federation, her league's pay structures, and the sport's failures around race without softening the message for comfort. She helped anchor NJ/NY Gotham FC to the 2023 NWSL Championship, a title that arrived on a team many had written off earlier that season. She has spoken about being a queer Black woman in a sport still working out its relationship to both identities, treating visibility less as a milestone to be celebrated and more as a baseline that should have existed all along.

Timeline

10 milestones

2012

Wins the Gatorade National Girls Soccer Player of the Year after a standout high school career at Our Lady of Good Counsel.

2013

Begins her collegiate career at Harvard University, where she emerges as one of the nation's top forwards.

2017

Selected ninth overall in the NWSL College Draft by the Boston Breakers, beginning her professional career.

2018

Joins the Portland Thorns FC and helps the club win the NWSL Shield.

2019

Earns her first senior cap with the United States Women's National Soccer Team.

2020

Wins the NWSL Challenge Cup with the Portland Thorns.

2021

Signs with NJ/NY Gotham FC, becoming one of the club's marquee attacking players.

2023

Leads Gotham FC to its first-ever NWSL Championship, scoring in the championship match and earning Championship MVP honors.

2024

Suffers an ACL injury during the NWSL season, beginning a lengthy rehabilitation while remaining a prominent advocate for players and the growth of women's soccer.

2025

Returns to the field for Gotham FC after more than a year away, completing her comeback from ACL surgery.

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Awards/Honors

INDIVIDUAL AWARDS

2012Gatorade National Girls Soccer Player of the Year
2013Ivy League Rookie of the Year
2014, 2015, 2016First Team All-Ivy League
2015Ivy League Offensive Player of the Year
2015, 2016NSCAA First Team All-American
2018NWSL Shield Champion (Portland Thorns FC)
2020NWSL Challenge Cup Champion (Portland Thorns FC)
2021NWSL Best XI First Team (NJ/NY Gotham FC)
2022CONCACAF W Championship Gold Medal (United States)
2023NWSL Champion (NJ/NY Gotham FC)
2023NWSL Championship MVP (NJ/NY Gotham FC)
2024CONCACAF W Gold Cup Gold Medal (United States)

LEGACY

2025Named to Adweek's Most Powerful Women in Sports

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Midge Purce's Collection

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Sources:Wikipedia
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