What comes to your mind when you hear of soccer and FIFA? Messi, Ronaldo, and famous male soccer players? But Brandi Chastain is one such woman who is changing stereotypes.
Brandi is a retired soccer player who has won Fifa Woman’s World Cup twice and Olympics Gold twice.
She played soccer professionally for sixteen years of her life. Indeed, she inspires many young girls and aspiring soccer players.
When Brandi started, soccer was mainly considered a man’s game, but she changed the whole scenario. After she scored the winning goal in 1999, she became the most recognizable figure in American sports.
Today, we dive into the life of Chastain; here, we discuss her career, net worth, childhood, personal life, and many more.
But first, it is time to look at the quick facts.
Quick Facts
|
Full Name |
Brandi Denise Chastain |
|
Birth Date |
July 21, 1968 |
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Birth Place |
San Jose, California, United States |
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Famous as |
Brandi Chastain |
|
Nickname |
Hollywood |
|
Age |
55 |
|
Nationality |
American |
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Ethnicity |
White |
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Education |
|
|
Horoscope |
Cancer |
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Father’s Name |
Roger Chastain |
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Mother’s Name |
Lark Chastain |
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Siblings |
Chad Chastain |
|
Height |
5 feet 7 inches (1.70 m) |
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Weight |
59 kg |
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Hair Color |
Blonde |
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Eye Color |
Brown |
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Build |
Athletic |
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Sexual Orientation |
Straight |
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Marital Status |
Married |
|
Husband |
Jerry Smith |
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Children |
|
|
Profession |
Professional Soccer Player |
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Affiliation |
FIFA |
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Debut |
1988 |
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Position |
Defender, Midfielder, Forward |
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Active Years |
1988-2004 |
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Career Earnings |
$2.5 Million |
|
Salary |
Not Available |
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Merch |
|
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Social Media |
|
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Last Update |
April, 2024 |
Brandi Chastain: Early Life and Education
It was 1968, the hottest time of the year, summer, and the happiest moment for San Jose couple Roger and Lark Chastain as God blessed them with a daughter.
Later, a San Jose couple named her Brandi Denise Chastain. Brandi grew up to be a bit of a tomboy and started liking soccer, a boy’s game.
But her parents were supportive of whatever she did. They did not stop her from playing soccer.
Lark was a flight attendant; she was always cheerful and smiling just like her name.
Brandi was just eight years old when she first started playing soccer.
Then, it was considered a man’s game, so there were not many soccer teams for girls. But it did not stop Brandi; she played soccer on the boys’ soccer team in Davis Junior High School.
After that, she joined Archbishop Mitty High School, leading her college team to three consecutive wins in Central Coast Section Championship.
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Brandi Chastain: Career
College Career
Brandi began to play soccer at eight but turned professional in 1986 after joining university.
At the University of California, she played as a forward player. As a freshman, she scored fifteen goals for Golden Bears.
After one year of associating with Bears, she was named All-American. Apart from that, she also won the Freshman of the Year honor by Soccer America.
Everything was going well, but unfortunately, she tore her ligament in 1987 and had to stay away from the whole 1988 season after surgery.
In 1989 Brandi was transferred to Santa Clara University; she helped the team win two consecutive final NCAA College Cup.
During the regular season, Chastain scored ten goals in total for Broncos. In 1990 she became a national scoring leader with 50 points, i.e., twenty-two goals.
In the same year, she was named as the ISSA player of the year and for being a nations’ top soccer, the Honda Sports Award.
International Career
Brandi did not limit herself in college games and tried her luck in international competitions. In 1988, which is considered her debut in international tournaments, Brandi earned her first cap for the United States woman’s soccer team.
Her first march was against Japan, where she scored her first international goal.
Brandi mostly played as a defender; in her 192 international games, she has played as a defender eighty-nine times.
Chastain and her team won the CONCACAF Woman’s Championship in 1991 against Mexico, where she scored five consecutive goals and led her team to a win.
The same year Brandi won FIFA Woman’s World Cup held in China.
Apart from that, she has represented her country in Olympics as well.
In 1996 she took part in the Olympics, which happened to be the first Olympics tournament to include women’s soccer.
Brandi suffered a knee injury at that match, yet she played the game with complete dedication.
As a result, and fortunately, her team won the game and became the first woman’s soccer division to win gold in Olympics.
For Different Clubs
Besides being a part of the national team, Brandi also played for different clubs.
In 1993, she joined Shiroki FC, a Japanese team, for one season. There she was awarded the Most Valuable Player Award.
Besides, for two years, Brandi played for San Jose. She was also a founding player of Woman’s United Soccer Association, the first-ever woman’s soccer league of the United States.
But it could only sustain for three years.
At forty, she played for FC Gold Pride in 2009. But Brandi could not play as expected, and her team lost that season.
Career Apart from Soccer
In 2014, at the age of forty-five, Brandi retired from her professional playing career and started a new coaching journey.
She is the varsity head coach of Bellarmine College Preparatory, and in her guidance, the team has won their first CCS open division championship.
Besides, she has also been featured in many television shows. Some of the shows she has been featured in are, The Late Late Show with Kilborn, The Tonight Show with Joe Leon, Late show with David Letterman, and Good Morning America.
She also has been featured in an HBO documentary named Dare to Dream. And in 2014, Fox soccer paid tribute to Brandi with a forty-four-minute film called Brandi Chastain: A tribute to champion.
For the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics, Brandi worked as a broadcaster for NBC sports.
Besides, she has also worked in ESPN as a commentator.
Brandi Chastain: Net Worth
Brandi is expected to have a net worth of $2.5 million. The primary source of her income has been her soccer career.
Apart from that, Brandi earns a good amount of money from her brand deals and endorsements. But unfortunately, we don’t have much information on how she spends her millions.
Brand Deals and Endorsements
The best part of being a celebrity is you get to use many things for free in the name of endorsing their products.
Likewise, after the 1999 FIFA world championship, Brandi and her goal got famous; as a result, she started getting many brand deals.
The number one company she is associated with is Nike. She is also an ambassador of Pfizer, AbbVie Inc, Bud Light, Gatorade, and Wheaties.
Magazines and Books
The most liked picture in the history of soccer, and the most controversial soccer picture, all at the same time, is Brandi’s victory celebration picture.
In 1999, that picture was published in almost every magazine and became the second most iconic picture in the magazine’s history.
Brandi was also featured by some of the most prominent magazines, like Sports Illustrated, Times, and Newsweek.
Besides that, Chastain 2005 became a co-author of a book on her. The book was named, “It’s Not About the Bra: Play Hard, Play Fair, and Put the Fun Back Into Competitive Sports.”
Controversial Goal Celebration
After giving the fifth kick in the penalty shoot-out and winning the 1997 FIFA world cup, Brandi could not contain her happiness and took off her jersey in front of almost 90,000 people.
However, for her, it was just an act of showcasing her happiness and the joy she was feeling at that moment.
But it did not go well with many people, and they started opposing her for taking off her jersey and falling in knees in a sports bra.
Later, the following year, taking jerseys off was declared a violation of law, and anyone who did that would get a yellow card.
But now the time has changed, in 2019, her celebration was commemorated with the bronze statue outside the stadium where this incident happened.
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Brandi Chastain: Personal Life
Brandi is happily married to Jerry, the head coach of the women’s soccer team.
Together this beautiful couple has a son named Jaden Smith. However, Brandi was not Jerry’s first wife, and Jerry also has a son from a previous marriage, Cameron Smith.
Both Brandi and Jerry look after Cameron, and Brandi never treats Cameron as a stepson. Instead, Brandi and Cameron share a good relationship and have immense respect for each other.
In 2016, she also announced that she would be donating her brain for concussion research after her death. Brandi was also inducted into the California Hall of Fame in 2019.
Nonetheless, Brandi is enjoying her life to the fullest. As she is in her fifties, she wants to spend most of her time with her family.
Social Media Presence
Brandi is active on Instagram and Twitter. On Instagram, she has around 15k followers, and there she usually posts about herself, her kids, and vacation pictures.
Likewise, she joined Twitter in 2008, and to date, she has made 3003 tweets. She has about 70k people following her on Twitter.
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is Brandi doing these days?
Brandi is currently working as a soccer commentator for NBC Sports.
How did Brandi and Jerry Smith’s love story start?
Brandi and Jerry met each other in Santa Clara University, where Smith was the head coach of the women’s soccer team and Brandi was a student.
