WOLFPACK

WOLFPACK Plot Summary

Introduction

The cold evening air swept across the field as twenty-three women huddled in a circle, their breath visible in the stadium lights. These weren't just teammates—they were a pack, a fierce collective bound by something deeper than matching uniforms. Among them stood Abby Wambach, her bleached hair and commanding presence unmistakable. As co-captain of the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team, she wasn't just leading them toward victory on the field; she was modeling a revolutionary way of leadership that would eventually transcend sports entirely. This image captures the essence of what this book illuminates—a new paradigm of leadership that combines fierce determination with genuine humanity. Through personal stories from her legendary soccer career and life beyond the field, Abby Wambach challenges conventional wisdom about what makes an effective leader. She dismantles outdated rules that have kept too many of us—especially women—from fully embracing our power. The leadership principles shared here aren't just about winning championships; they're about creating a world where everyone can thrive together, where we recognize our interconnectedness, and where we understand that true strength comes not from domination but from unleashing the collective power of the pack.

Chapter 1: Finding Your Inner Wolf: Breaking Free from Limitations

Little Red Riding Hood was always warned to stay on the path, keep her head down, and avoid talking to strangers. This fairy tale, like so many stories told to girls around the world, carried a clear message: follow the rules, don't be curious, don't say too much, don't expect more—or something terrible will happen to you. Growing up, Abby Wambach felt these same limitations. As a young girl, she hated wearing dresses but was constantly told that "good girls wear dresses." Every time she put one on, she felt like she couldn't breathe, like she was wearing a costume that hid her true self. "I'd look at myself in the mirror when I was wearing a dress and the pit in my stomach would rise to my throat," she recalls. "I'd stare at myself and think: I don't like how this looks or how this feels. This is not me." The struggle continued into her teenage years when she found herself dating boys because that's what her religious upbringing and culture taught her girls were supposed to do. It wasn't until she felt that spark of infatuation with a girl that she realized love is supposed to be more than just "fine." Initially, fear of losing her family kept her from being open about her sexuality, breaking her heart. But eventually, she recognized that real love is as necessary as air, food, and shelter. "I learned that real love is a human need and that if I denied myself of it, the wolf inside me would die," she writes. "Trembling—and secretly for a long while—I chose love. I chose myself." Later, as she dreamed of becoming a professional soccer player, she encountered another limitation: she didn't even know women's professional soccer existed. Watching the men's national team play, she'd think, "But I could do that. I want to do that." Fortunately, behind the scenes, women were fighting for Title IX, building professional women's leagues, and striking to ensure a livable wage for the emerging women's national soccer team. These women hadn't "Little Red Riding Hooded" their way through life. They made a new path where none existed. The revelation that changed everything for Abby was realizing she was never Little Red Riding Hood—she was always the Wolf. There is a wolf inside every woman. Her wolf is who she was made to be before the world told her who to be. It's her talent, power, dreams, voice, curiosity, courage, dignity, choices—her truest identity. When we venture off the prescribed path, we don't find danger; we find ourselves. We discover that the greatest fulfillment comes not from obediently following the rules, but from having the courage to create our own path forward.

Chapter 2: Balancing Gratitude with Ambition: Demanding What You Deserve

When ESPN decided to honor Abby Wambach with their Icon Award alongside NBA's Kobe Bryant and NFL's Peyton Manning, she felt overwhelming gratitude. Standing on that stage during the televised ESPYS ceremony, while the audience cheered and Justin Timberlake highlighted their careers, she had a momentary feeling of having arrived, like women athletes had finally made it. But as the applause ended and the three sports icons walked off stage, a stark realization hit her. While they were all stepping away from similar careers—having made the same sacrifices, shed the same blood, sweat, and tears, and won world championships at the same level—their retirements wouldn't be remotely the same. Kobe and Peyton were walking into futures with enormous bank accounts. Because of that, they had something else Abby didn't have: freedom. Their hustling days were over; hers were just beginning. Back in her hotel room that night, Abby finally acknowledged what had been simmering inside her for decades: anger. The inequity was glaring. In the 2018 FIFA Men's World Cup, the winning team took home $38 million in prize money—nineteen times more than the women's champions received in 2015. This despite the fact that in 2015, when the U.S. Women's National Team won the World Cup, they turned a profit of $6.6 million, whereas the Men's National Team earned just under $2 million. This wasn't just about sports. It reflected a much broader reality: on average, women globally earn significantly less than men in equivalent positions. In the first quarter of 2018, women in the U.S. earned just 81.1 percent of what their male counterparts earned across all industries. The gap is even wider for women of color, with Black women typically paid only 63 cents and Latina women only 54 cents for every dollar paid to white male counterparts. Reflecting on her career, Abby realized she'd spent most of it just feeling grateful—grateful for a paycheck, grateful to represent her country, grateful to be the token woman at the table, grateful to receive any respect at all. That gratitude had kept her from using her voice to demand more for herself and equality for all women. "What keeps the pay gap in existence is not just the entitlement and complicity of men," she writes. "It's the gratitude of women." The lesson here isn't to abandon gratitude—it's to recognize that gratitude and ambition aren't mutually exclusive. We can be thankful for what we have while still fighting for what we deserve. Gratitude becomes dangerous only when it's used as a tool to keep us quiet, to prevent us from demanding equality and justice. The path forward requires us to be both grateful and brave, grateful and ambitious, grateful and persistent. Our gratitude should fuel our determination for change, not replace it.

Chapter 3: Leadership Beyond Position: Making an Impact from Anywhere

The 2015 World Cup marked a pivotal moment in Abby Wambach's career. As co-captain of the U.S. Women's National Team in her final tournament, she faced a difficult reality: at thirty-five, she wasn't the player she used to be. After the first few games, it became clear that she wouldn't be in the starting lineup for the remainder of the tournament. Instead, she would come off the bench. This was a crushing blow for someone who had scored more international goals than any human being on the planet and co-captained Team USA to victory after victory for the past decade. The competitive kid in her had dreamed of finishing her career as she'd played it—leading her team to victory on the field. But circumstances demanded she learn a different, perhaps more important leadership lesson: how to lead from the bench. As the second game of the tournament arrived, the transition was jarring. Instead of walking onto the field with the other starters, Abby walked into the stadium with the reserve players and watched from the sidelines as the national anthem played. All eyes were on her—teammates, crowd, fans—watching to see how she would react. Would she pout and make it about herself, or would she swallow her pride and make it about the team? She chose the latter, channeling her longtime teammate Lori Lindsey, who wasn't a consistent starter but made the team better through her enthusiastic bench support. "I paid attention," Abby writes. "I screamed so loudly, obnoxiously, and relentlessly that the coach moved me to the far side of the bench. I kept water ready for players coming off the field. I celebrated when goals were scored, and I kept believing in us even when mistakes were made." By the end of each game, she was as exhausted as if she'd played all ninety minutes. The starters had left it all on the field; she'd left it all on the bench. This approach continued throughout the tournament. The U.S. Women's National Team won the World Cup that year, celebrating as one unified team—starters and bench players alike. Abby now believes that one of the reasons they won was the support of the bench. The pride she feels about how she handled that tournament rivals any pride she has about scoring big goals. This experience taught her that leadership isn't about position or title—it's about impact and influence. "You are allowed to be disappointed when it feels like life's benched you," she acknowledges. "What you aren't allowed to do is miss your opportunity to lead from the bench." Leadership shows up in many forms: volunteering at a local school, speaking encouraging words to a friend, holding the hand of a dying parent, or creating boundaries that prove to the world you value yourself. True leadership isn't a position to earn; it's an inherent power to claim. It's not the privilege of a few but the right and responsibility of all. "Leader is not a title that the world gives to you," Abby insists. "It's an offering that you give to the world." By embracing this truth, we can make an impact from wherever we are, regardless of our formal position or title.

Chapter 4: Transforming Failure into Fuel: The Power of Persistence

During Abby's early days with the U.S. Women's National Team, she noticed something unusual in their locker room—a small 5 × 7 photograph taped next to the door. It wasn't a picture of celebration or victory. Instead, it showed their longtime rival, the Norwegian national team, celebrating after beating the USA in the 1995 World Cup. It was a picture of their own team's last defeat. Curious about this unconventional motivational technique, Abby eventually asked her teammates about it. They explained that while winning was their primary goal, when failure came, they weren't afraid of it—they were fueled by it. They didn't deny or reject their losses or accept them as proof they weren't worthy of playing at the highest level. Instead, they insisted on remembering. "Because we know that the lessons of yesterday's loss become the fuel for tomorrow's win," they told her. The strategy worked. After displaying that photograph, the team brought home their first Olympic gold the following year. This taught Abby that becoming a champion—on and off the field—requires transforming failures into fuel for future success. Yet women, particularly, haven't fully accessed the power of failure. "When it comes, we panic, deny it, or reject it outright," Abby observes. "Worst-case scenario, we view failure as proof that we were always unworthy imposters." Meanwhile, men have been allowed to fail and keep playing. Imperfect men have been empowered and permitted to run the world since the beginning of time. It's time for imperfect women to grant themselves the same permission. Abby experienced this lesson firsthand after retirement when ESPN hired her to commentate the men's 2016 UEFA European Championship. The moment the "on air" light turned on, her brain seemed to shut down. She couldn't remember how to speak while other commentators easily discussed players, stats, and systems. Twitter quickly confirmed what she already knew—she had failed spectacularly. The embarrassment burned, and she was tempted to flee home immediately. On the flight back after the tournament, she wrestled with this public failure. She could use it as a career-ending excuse or as helpful information. She could decide she was destined to be a failure, or she could recognize that she simply wasn't destined to be a commentator. She chose the latter, crossing "commentator" off her list and continuing to explore other options. A few months later, she founded her leadership company, where she now teaches emerging leaders how to become champions for themselves and others. The world needs to see women take risks, fail big, and insist on their right to try again. And again. And again. "A champion never allows a short-term failure to take her out of the long-term game," Abby declares. "A woman who doesn't give up can never lose." By reframing our relationship with failure—seeing it not as a final judgment but as a necessary step in any meaningful journey—we transform what could defeat us into the very thing that propels us forward.

Chapter 5: Collective Power: How Women Champion Each Other

During every ninety-minute soccer game, there are a few magical moments when the ball actually hits the back of the net and a goal is scored. It's the culmination of perfect timing, precise placement, and collective effort—every player in exactly the right place at the right moment. What happens next transforms a group of individual women into one team: the bench erupts, teammates rush toward the goal scorer, and spontaneous celebration ensues. While it might appear to the crowd that the team is celebrating the goal scorer, what they're really celebrating is every player, every coach, every practice, every sprint, every doubt, and every failure that this single goal represents. "Sometimes you will make a sixty-yard sprint only to watch another woman score the big goal," Abby explains. "Sometimes it was your tackle, your run, your heart, and your sweat that made that goal possible." Throughout her international career, Abby scored 184 goals. If you watch footage of any of those goals, you'll notice something consistent: the moment after she scores, she begins to point—to the teammate who assisted, to the defender who protected, to the midfielder who ran tirelessly, to the coach who dreamed up the play, to the bench player who willed this moment into existence. "I've never scored a goal in my life without getting a pass from someone else," she acknowledges. "Every goal I've ever scored belonged to my entire team." This principle extends far beyond the soccer field. In the Wolfpack, when a woman scores, there are only two options: we're either rushing toward her in celebration or we're pointing to acknowledge those who contributed to the success. This looks like amplifying each other's voices, demanding seats for marginalized people at decision-making tables, celebrating each other's successes, expressing gratitude, and supporting one another when we fall. Championing each other can be difficult for women because they've long been pitted against one another for the token seat at the table. "Maintaining the illusion of scarcity is how power keeps women competing for the singular seat at the old table, instead of uniting and building a new, bigger table," Abby observes. This scarcity mindset has been planted inside women and among them—not their fault, but their problem to solve. The Wolfpack believes that scarcity is a lie. Love, justice, success, and power aren't finite pies where a bigger slice for one woman means less for another. They're infinite resources meant to be accessible to all. This revolution begins with a collective belief and is won through collective action. By helping each other, rushing toward each other, pointing to each other, and celebrating each other's successes as collective victories, women can claim infinite joy, success, and power—together.

Chapter 6: Owning Your Worth: When to Demand the Ball

As a young player, Abby Wambach idolized Michelle Akers, the best player in the world at that time. Michelle was tall like Abby, built like Abby would be, and embodied everything Abby dreamed of becoming. One day, Abby's youth national team had the opportunity to play alongside their hero in a five-against-five scrimmage. For the first three quarters, Michelle took it easy, coaching the young players about spacing, timing, and tactics. But entering the fourth quarter, she realized her team was losing by three goals. Suddenly, something changed in her. She ran back to her goalkeeper, stood just a yard away, and screamed, "GIVE. ME. THE. EFFING. BALL." The goalkeeper complied, and Michelle took that ball, dribbled through the entire opposing team, and scored. Since it was "winners keepers," her team retained possession after scoring. Michelle immediately ran back to her goalkeeper and again demanded the ball. Again, she dribbled through everyone and scored. She repeated this pattern until her team had secured victory. This moment transformed how Abby saw herself. Before that game, she had always tried to dim her light to avoid outshining others, operating at about 75 percent of her capacity. She thought this was the humble thing to do and feared that her full talent might drive a wedge between her teammates and herself. But watching Michelle, Abby witnessed the power of one woman's competitive fire—a woman who not only wanted to win but owned that desire and believed she could make it happen. "What I learned is that the most inspiring thing on earth is a woman who believes in herself, who gives 100 percent, and who owns her greatness unapologetically," Abby writes. "Watching Michelle use her power shamelessly freed me to use mine, too." Years later, this lesson helped Abby through a personal challenge when she fell in love with a woman who had three children. Though she'd always wanted to be a mother, she felt unprepared to be a stepmother. She worried about the children resenting her, about never feeling the love a biological parent feels, about not being good enough. But remembering Michelle's example, Abby decided that when you want something badly enough—as she wanted a life with Glennon and a family—you show up before you're ready and demand the effing ball. She married Glennon and became a stepparent. The children call her their "bonus mom," and this decision became the best of her life. It hasn't been easy, but she, Glennon, and Glennon's ex-husband created a pack that threw away old stories about blended families and wrote a new one based on respect, grace, and valuing collective peace over individual egos. The power of owning your worth and demanding what you want extends beyond individual fulfillment. When you stand up and demand the ball, you give others permission to do the same. The collective power of the Wolfpack begins by unleashing the power of each individual Wolf. As The Jungle Book states: "The strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack."

Chapter 7: Leading with Authenticity: Bringing Your Full Humanity

When Pia Sundhage was hired as the new coach for the U.S. Women's National Team, she encountered a team that was the biggest, fittest, strongest, and most physically dominant in the world. They were winning through sheer power and intimidation. That approach was working fine for them—the final score was all that mattered. During her first meeting with the team, Pia acknowledged their greatness but challenged them to reach even higher. "You are the best in the world. But there is still a higher level in you," she told them. "You have proven you can win games. What I want you to work on is how you win games." She wanted them to continue winning, but to do so with creativity, innovation, and steady assuredness instead of just physical dominance. She wanted them to "win beautifully." Then, in a moment that shocked the team, Pia pulled out a guitar and began singing Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'." The players sat stunned, thinking: "She has absolutely no idea what she's doing. We're screwed." This was the first time many of them had ever seen a leader make herself vulnerable. It felt, initially, like a leadership breach. Yet as they listened to her sing, their awkwardness gave way to curiosity and then to a sense of connection. Something within them awakened. By showing the team who she truly was and what she loved, Pia taught them that real leaders know themselves and bring their full humanity to their leadership. They don't mimic cultural constructs of what a leader should look, sound, and act like. They understand that there are as many authentic ways to lead as there are people. This impromptu musical performance catalyzed a reimagining of leadership within the team. Before Pia, they had subscribed to a top-down structure where wisdom and direction flowed from coaches and captains to be executed without question by the team. After Pia, their leadership structure evolved. Abby's role as co-captain became less about making pronouncements and more about eliciting ideas from everyone. Players began to feel safe enough to contribute their voices and ideas. They started coaching each other—veterans learning from newcomers, captains learning from support staff. Everyone began to think of themselves as a leader. This new approach wasn't always comfortable. It required courage from new players and humility from veterans accustomed to telling rather than listening. But Pia modeled the way, showing them what brave, humble, and vulnerable leadership looked like rather than just telling them about it. The lesson is clear: the old way of leading with invulnerability and creating followers is giving way to a new approach—leading with full humanity and cultivating a team of leaders. This kind of authentic leadership doesn't just create better results; it creates better people. When we bring our full selves to our leadership roles, we create space for others to do the same, unleashing the collective power and wisdom of the entire pack.

Summary

The journey through The Wolfpack Way reveals a profound truth: leadership isn't about position, perfection, or power over others—it's about unleashing our authentic selves and empowering those around us. Abby Wambach's transformation from soccer legend to life leader illuminates that our greatest impact often comes when we break free from old rules and embrace new ones. Whether learning to lead from the bench, demanding what we deserve while remaining grateful, or finding strength in our failures, the path to meaningful leadership requires both courage and humanity. What emerges most powerfully from these stories is the understanding that none of us is meant to journey alone. The lone wolf may survive, but the pack thrives. When Abby realized her running had become unbearable after retirement, it wasn't because she'd lost her athleticism—it was because she'd lost her pack. This truth extends to all areas of life: we need others who will celebrate our goals, point to our contributions, demand the ball when necessary, and stand beside us when we fail. Leadership isn't about creating followers; it's about cultivating other leaders who bring their full humanity to every challenge. By embracing our inner wolves and finding our packs, we don't just change our own lives—we change the game entirely, creating new paths for those who will follow.

About Author

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Abby Wambach

ABBY WAMBACH is a two-time Olympic gold medalist, FIFA World Cup Champion, and the highest all-time international goal scorer for male and female soccer players. She is an activist for equality and inclusion and the New York Times bestselling author of Forward: A Memoir. Abby is co-founder of Wolfpack Endeavor, which is revolutionizing leadership development for women in the workplace and beyond through her champion mindset, individualized coaching, and team-bound focus. Abby lives in Florida with her wife and three children.

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