Madison Schultz has scored hundreds of goals.
From her days playing soccer for the Thunderbolts in Sno-King soccer when she was 5 years old, through her club and select career for Northwest Nationals and Crossfire Premier, to her three-year varsity career at Edmonds-Woodway High School, the junior forward has always been able to find the back of the net.
Heck, when a friend at Edmonds-Woodway told her in jest he wouldn’t go to homecoming with her unless she scored five goals, she went out and scored five in an 8-1 win over Oak Harbor.
But one goal in particular, at an Elite Clubs National League (ECNL) tournament in Florida last December, caught the eye of the nation’s most famous college soccer coach and in many ways, earned Schultz a scholarship to the University of North Carolina.
“I went down the right flank, beat a girl inside and shot it from 25 yards. It couldn’t have been a more perfect strike,” Schultz recalled. “Three members of the UNC coaching staff were there and (UNC head coach) Anson (Dorrance) was on his way. He said it’s all they could talk about for the rest of the weekend. Their interest in me went from zero to 100 after that.”
Anson Dorrance has coached North Carolina’s women’s soccer for 36 seasons and has won national championships in 22 of those years, most recently in 2012. He has coached 54 players who have represented the United States on the women’s national team, including Mia Hamm, Kristine Lilly and April Heinrichs. He is a giant in the sport.
Before that tournament in Florida, Schultz took a pro-active approach to her recruitment, emailing Dorrance and the North Carolina staff and telling them that she would be at the event if they wanted to watch her play.
The Tar Heels came, and it was up to Schultz to perform. She did, and now she is verbally committed to North Carolina for the 2016 season. She can’t officially sign with the Tar Heels until next fall.
The ability to perform at a top-caliber level in high-pressure situations also marked Schultz’s time with the U-17 women’s national team, which she joined for the CONCACAF U-17 Women’s Championship in Montego Bay, Jamaica, in the fall of 2013, and for an international friendly against England the previous summer.
Schultz appeared as a substitute in three of Team USA’s five matches in Jamaica. She is still waiting for her first international goal, but has impressed the USA Soccer staff with her abilities.
“Maddy has some extraordinary physical tools, and even in international competition, she has the ability to make a difference in a game at a moment’s notice,” said B.J. Snow, head coach of the U-17 women’s national team. “As she grows and matures, her ability to play center forward and on the wing will enable her to have that impact for much longer.”
Snow, who is married to former UNC and Team USA star Lindsay Tarpley, said that attending North Carolina and participating in the daily crucible of training against top-drawer players will enhance Schultz’s abilities.
“She will be challenged by her peers and coaches every single day,” Snow said. “She’ll be challenging for time on the field and for a starting spot, and being thrown into that situation will force her competitive side to come out. That’s one of her strengths.”
Schultz’s play with her club team got her into the pool of players from which USA Soccer selects the U-17 squad, and she had to continually shine at a few camps per year for over two years before finally making the team.
“You just have to keep trying to get invited to every camp. They don’t bring you back if they don’t want you, and they move on to the next girl,” Schultz said.
That’s heady stuff for a high school junior from Edmonds, but it has been Schultz’s life since she and her parents, Brian and Kelley, opted to have her play on top select teams when she was in sixth grade, putting her on a path toward college recruitment and international experience.
With all Schultz has accomplished, it would be easy for her to get a swelled head. For someone who has donned the red, white and blue of Team USA, the purple and green of Edmonds-Woodway High School might seem like small potatoes. Not for Schultz, who has no trouble staying humble and grateful for what she has under the watchful eyes of her parents.
“My dad tells me that I’m just Maddy Schultz,” she said. “I’ve proven nothing, and I’ve done nothing when it comes down to the gist of it all.”
Edmonds-Woodway coach Bill LeCompte, who has known Schultz since she played on that Thunderbolts team with his daughter Kendall, has done everything he can to make her feel like just another member of his Warriors team, even when she had to take her entire sophomore season away from the team to attend national team camps.
“Madison has always been a person that’s wanted to fit in,” LeCompte said. “Sometimes I think there are times where at some level she is consciously choosing not to play to her fullest potential, so that she doesn’t stand out. She was brought up to fit in and work with her teammates. There are players that have come through our school that have had a high amount of exposure, and they’ve walked that way about campus. I can’t say that I’ve seen that from her.”
Whereas some of her teammates on the national squad view their high school commitment as a burden, Schultz embraces the normalcy it provides. It helps that Schultz is one of four Edmonds-Woodway players who have committed to an NCAA Division I program and that there are other Warriors who can play at Schultz’s level.
“I have never had a moment when I’ve been frustrated with my high school teammates because of an inability to keep up,” she said. “I play up front with Rylee Peterson, who is going to the University of Nevada, and she is certainly capable of making a run that I would want to play a ball to.”
Schultz is very close with her twin brother, Spencer, who plays football and wrestles at Edmonds-Woodway, and is very cognizant of making sure her achievements don’t overshadow his. “I never wanted him to not be excited for me, or for him to think of me differently because of my accomplishments,” she said.
Because she can play soccer at a very high level, Madison Schultz has been able to experience life in a different way than many of her peers.
“Maddy has been traveling all over the world by herself since she was 13 years old. She knows how to pack everything you need for a week in one bag, how to get from one end of an airport to the other, how to talk with adults and get what she needs, and how to not take life too seriously,” her mother, Kelley, said. “I believe she has been given a perspective through competition that many people don’t learn until they are well into their 20s, and that neither the moments of elation nor those of heartbreaking defeat that she has had define who she is as a person.”
Edmonds-Woodway is well-positioned to go deep into the postseason, with Schultz and her 18 goals leading the way. But when the high school season is over, she will return to her club team and make the thrice-weekly trips to Redmond to play with Crossfire Premier.
She is in the pool of players to be selected to the U-18 Women’s National Team for events leading up to the U-20 Women’s World Cup.
No matter what uniform she’s wearing, when Madison Schultz puts on her only pair of shin guards and laces up her boots, she is where she belongs and where she can express herself.
“There’s just something about playing soccer that makes me feel different amongst everyone else,” she said. “There are a lot of soccer players in this world, but when I play soccer, it’s just a completely different thing. I just love it.”
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