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“It happened so early that I would say the sport chose me. I started when I was four years old. It's something that I loved from the beginning.”

Samantha Martel knew she was different from an early age. For her, football wasn’t just a pastime. It was a passion. Yet by the age of thirty-one, when most players are at their peak, the California native had stepped away from the game. Now living in Las Vegas, her focus is on helping at-risk youth, and professionals who work with them.

Describing the program she has developed as ‘helping to reshape mindsets to big picture thinking, rather than dwelling on things that happened in the past’, it’s a narrative she knows well, after experiencing thrilling highs, and painful lows thanks to the beautiful game.

Sam’s first experience of playing for a club came when she was seven years old. “My mom picked me up after the first session and I was crying” she recalled with a smile. “She thought I hadn’t had fun. The truth was, I was angry that the other kids were goofing around and not taking it as seriously as me.”

Gymnastics briefly vied for her time and attention, but at the age of eleven, she was to meet her first mentor, a coach who would help shape her athletic development. “By this age, even as a child, you start to have an idea of what trajectory you are on. Most kids are on a participation path. I was fairly good and had the hunger to get better. That’s when I met Charles Gordon.”

Whilst blessed with natural athleticism, Sam had not grown up immersed in the culture of the sport. That was to quickly change.

“Charles, known as Gordan to the players, educated me on the foundations of the game. He would write things down on paper, and I had never seen the game like that before from a tactical perspective. At the same time, I started watching Thierry Henry in the Premier League at 6am on the weekends before games. Everything started to come together in my brain at this point.”

After a couple of years, Sam was spotted at a tournament by another substantial career influence, Steve McKenzie. McKenzie thought Sam was too good to stay on her current team and offered her a trial for a new side in Southern California, Real SoCal, playing for a female coach, Kristy Walker. Less than six months later, Sam found herself on the player pool for the U15 national team.

With the inaugural FIFA U17 Women’s World Cup to be played in New Zealand in 2008, Sam spent two years making a monthly trip from the west coast to New Jersey to train with USYNT, where her coach also worked at a college. “I missed 45 days of school and 11th grade to prepare for the World Cup. My teachers asked me what the hell is going on? Why are you missing school for soccer!”

Most of the players were unaware of the history they were creating. “We were so young, and I’d never flown on a long-haul flight like that before. We were only 16 or 17 and I had watched national teams on television before. When we were stood in our kit singing the anthem together, I was so proud but it felt crazy too.”

At the tournament, Dszenifer Maroszan finished as Top Scorer, Mana Iwabuchi was voted Best Player, and future stars of the calibre of Lucy Bronze, Alex Popp, Morgan Brian and Pernille Harder also cut their international football teeth. The U.S. reached the final, taking silver, with Korea DPR securing victory after extra time.

In a reflection of where the women’s game was at that point, Sam didn’t see the sport as a viable career option. “When we were younger, ‘professional’ meant you played for the national team. During college, the league still wasn't sustainable. Then towards the end of that period, the league (NWSL) launched.

“I didn't want to play at the next level because I was unsure what that meant. People said I could also go overseas but I wasn’t really interested. I was happy with my youth career. My college was paid for, so I felt I wasn’t missing out, if I didn't play pro.”

 

 

During her college studies, Sam would encounter an abusive coach - not an isolated experience during her career - who made her question her love of the game for the first time. “I thought soccer shouldn’t be so hard from an emotional and mental standpoint. What we went through was just unbelievable. I didn’t want to play ever again. I hated soccer” Sam recalled in a detailed interview last year.

Through a series of subsequent Sliding Doors moments, Sam would join Chicago Red Stars. With the initial NWSL only six months long, players looked for other options, in Sam’s words, to piece together contracts. This took her to Sydney and twice to Melbourne on loan, an experience recommended by Red Stars teammate and Australian international, Emily van Egmond.

In 2018, Sam was traded to Utah Royals. “When I got to my new club, I felt free. I was in a new space. But emotionally and mentally, I could not do it. It was just the carryover of stress from my experience in Chicago,” said Sam. After another spell in Australia, she returned to speak to her coach, and in the middle of the season, decided to finish her playing career. However, her time in Utah had unwittingly provided the launchpad for what would come next.

“The owner of Utah Royals was Dell Loy Hansen, and he asked me if I wanted to get a master’s degree for free, because we had a partnership with Western Governors University. I always thought that if I had the chance to go back to school, I would take it; that studying might set me up for later life. I ended up getting my Master’s in Curriculum and Instruction. Using those skills, I devised a programme based on everything I’d learned from playing sport.”

As she seriously began to consider retirement, Sam asked herself: What is my brand? What is the business that I want to pursue?

“The brainstorming process flowed naturally, and I quickly decided on BETTER®, be better” she explained. “It's the simple notion of being better each day. Learn from your mistakes and strive for a new level. I took the same ideology that I would apply when training. When I talk to kids, I tell them it's not about perfection; just improve your effort from yesterday.”

The BETTER® curriculum is designed to help students develop their own unique pathways to success. “Our target demographic reflects those who need alternative support and resources to create their individual track for success. By discovering the student's goals, we hope to empower them to also become positive people in their communities.”

When her students discover Sam’s playing past, a surprising topic features most commonly. “They think it's cool I played pro, but what they think is cooler, is that I played in other countries. I met one group of male students who unfortunately had been sentenced to prison and one of the kids was extremely interested in what it was like to live in Europe. It gave me a perspective on how limited their life experiences are at that age and validated why I built the program: to create a support system, to help them figure out what their compass is in life.”

 

Had travelling during her career opened Sam’s own eyes to different people and culture?

“I was fortunate enough to grow up in an area (Palmdale, California) where all my friends playing soccer were Mexican. Travelling definitely contributed to how my personality evolved. First, it takes discipline, to be somewhere on time. Then you get to experience new people. I'm the person in the airport who will always make eye contact, be open to a conversation and want to learn about you.

“I have hopefully changed some perspectives of how people view Americans too. Though our country is huge, people often ask: do you know the Kardashians?! I'm like, no! They are not ‘normal’ Americans. When I played in France and didn't speak French, I adapted to a new culture not to be in ‘survival mode’ but because I wanted to be open to a new experience.”

Moya Dodd, a doyen of football administration in Australia once said: A more gender diverse workplace is a better workplace. As a member of Women in Football on the other side of the Atlantic, we asked Sam for her own thoughts regarding how to tackle discrimination, sexism and misogyny, considering the statistics highlighted in WIF’s annual industry workforce survey.

“If we had the opportunity to send every student to spend six months overseas for their last semester of high school, I think that would make a world of difference. You know what I find interesting? If everybody was blindfolded for an experiment, how would we discriminate against each other? Why do we spend so much time on what we are looking at? Let me hear what you have to say. If we were all blind for a day, I guarantee that who we decide to be our friends, would change rapidly.”

As for tackling workplace structures, Sam also had a clear opinion. “It is predominantly men that run sport, and we need to look at whether people are getting jobs based on meritocracy. However, men and women both hire their friends. I don't think it is always a gender discrimination thing. People stick to what makes them feel comfortable.

“Men feel comfortable around men. Women often discriminate against women. When we talk about diversity, I feel intellectual diversity must be factored in too.”

We posed Sam one final question. Whether it be for the students she works with, or for others wishing to follow her path, did she have a motivational message to share?

“At Utah Royals, there was a goalkeeper coach called Jason Batty. Before every game, Jason would say the same thing: Know your job, do your job. I tell this to the kids and apply it in my own life too. If you understand your role, you can maximise your role. If you don't like something about it, you can change it.

“Every day, I try to be the best version of myself. That's how my mindset works. Everybody is on their own pathway. Whether you are trailblazing, or stepping into an infrastructure that already exists, try to make it better for the person that is going to experience it behind you. For me, that is the point of being on this earth.”

To learn more about Sam’s work, you can visit her website: BETTER® or connect with her on LinkedIn and Instagram. 

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