It wasn’t even a game week, and the Washington Post was calling for Carson Pickett.
Then NBC’s Today Show.
Then CBS Evening News.
The St. Johns Country Day graduate wasn’t expecting to become a national sensation. It just happened, one arm bump at a time.
“When it went viral,” she said, “I just did not expect that at all.”
Now, less than a month after the United States won the Women’s World Cup and catapulted women’s soccer into the center of the national sports scene, one of the First Coast’s own has transformed from a steady professional defender into one of the most talked-about players in the game.
It wasn’t for a goal that she scored with her feet, or even her head.
It wasn’t quite a fist bump. It was something a little more special.
After the arm bump seen around the world, the former Clay County soccer star is bracing for the glow of a far brighter spotlight when she takes the field Saturday for the Orlando Pride of the National Women’s Soccer League.
She’s expecting some of the most emotional cheers — maybe not the loudest, but some of the most heartfelt — from a young fan in the heart of the Sunshine State.
“It’s crazy what you can learn from a 2-year-old,” she said.
AN INTERNET SENSATION
Something was always different about a player who has won state high school championships and a national college title at Florida State, all despite missing a left hand.
“We’ve always believed God gave her this soccer talent to give her a platform, a chance to inspire,” said her father, Mike, the girls soccer coach at St. Johns Country Day for the last 20 years.
That platform grew far bigger on July 20.
That’s the last time Carson Pickett kicked a ball in a competitive match, the night that her postgame greeting with Joseph Tidd, just shy of his second birthday, transformed into a moment that landed her straight into the focus of the nation’s most prominent news outlets.
Like Pickett, Joseph was born without a left hand. Like her, he’s wild about soccer.
The Pride had just completed a 1-0 victory against the New York-based Sky Blue FC, when the boy reached out his left arm from the front row of Orlando’s Exploria Stadium. Pickett reached out hers.
Arm met arm, and two wide grins later, the moment was complete. But the story didn’t end there.
Joseph’s mother, Colleen, snapped a photo, which rapidly found its way onto social media by way of University of Florida women’s soccer coach Becky Burleigh.
Burleigh posted the image to Twitter, with the message “We need more of this in our world. RT to spread joy. Thank you @Cars_Pickett16!”
Pretty soon, that moment quickly rocketed through the high-speed lane of the Internet. By Saturday, the initial post had been retweeted more than 9,200 times, liked nearly 40,000.
The comments from well-wishers flooded in, from Brazil, Japan and Russia. Former St. Johns Country Day teammates and classmates passed along their congratulations. Soon, the newspapers and the broadcasters came calling.
It even brought Seminoles garnet and gold and Gators orange and blue together.
At a club that draws average crowds of slightly more than 5,000, Pickett was making the big time.
“The beautiful thing is the number of people reaching out to say, ‘I had this and I had been always ashamed,’” Mike Pickett said. “We were hearing from Belgium, Italy, Spain. So it’s awesome to see that people are being awoken by it and being inspired.”
GROWING THE BOND
Born without a full left arm — her extremity stops near the elbow, which can affect everything from transportation to warding off shoulder challenges to raising the ball for throw-ins like most other outside backs — the 25-year-old Pickett is used to shrugging off obstacles.
While playing soccer under her father at St. Johns Country Day, she won Florida High School Athletic Association state championships in 2007, 2009 and 2012, scoring 150 goals during her Spartans career and earning the Florida Dairy Farmers Miss Soccer award in 2012.
But climbing to the top wasn’t easy.
As Mike Pickett watched his daughter battle with and eventually shake off prosthetic limbs during her earliest years — she’s never liked them, he says, never sticking with one for more than minutes — he drew inspiration from an athlete who showed it didn’t take two arms to become a champion.
On Sept. 4, 1993, only 11 days before Carson was born in Spartanburg, S.C., Jim Abbott made history in Yankee Stadium. Baseball got its first one-handed no-hitter.
Carson was born without her left hand. Abbott, a gold medalist on the 1988 U.S. Olympic team and an 11-year starter with Major League Baseball’s California Angels, New York Yankees, Chicago White Sox and Milwaukee Brewers, was born without his right.
For Mike Pickett, Abbott’s achievements served as motivation to show his daughter what she could accomplish.
“I wanted to show her clips of him and show how fast he was able to get the glove off [the arm of his missing hand] and get into the field, almost like he was in fast motion,” he said. “That was the one that we hung our hat on.”
So for Carson Pickett, the chance to connect with a young fan facing through some of the same challenges that she’s faced — and conquered — resonates deeply.
“When you don’t feel good, it’s great hearing from someone in my position who can say, ‘Don’t let anyone tell you you’re not good enough,’” she said.
She first met Joseph and his parents, Miles and Colleen Tidd, during the spring, after the family contacted the club. They had heard the team had a player with the same limb condition as their son. Maybe, they thought, he might be able to meet with her.
Pickett said she was looking forward to meeting with Joseph and his family, but she had no idea just how tight the bond would become.
“We do bond on a certain level, even though I’m years and years apart... it’s cool knowing that there’s someone in those stands just like you,” she said.
Since that first meeting, Joseph has become one of her biggest, and smallest, supporters.
He’s a budding sports fan — he previously met former UCF and current Seattle Seahawks linebacker Shaquem Griffin, whose left hand was amputated at the age of 4 — and he seems to relish the opportunity to see the Pride defender in action.
“Typical 2-year-olds are grumpy at times,” Mike Pickett said, “but every time I’m around him, he’s smiling, laughing, showing the world his arm.”
While Carson’s parents, Mike and Treasure, continue working in Clay County, she now feels like the Tidds have become an extended family for her in Central Florida.
“It’s heartwarming just to know that they’re so close to me now... you sort of have another family here that loves you and supports you,” she said.
NOT BUSINESS AS USUAL
Now, starting Saturday, Carson Pickett returns to the Orlando field once again, kicking off against the Houston Dash in a game that’s going to feel a little different from a usual matchup of sixth-place and eighth-place clubs in the nine-team NWSL.
It’s not business as usual, after all, when the Washington Post and CBS Evening News have their eyes on you.
In all, Mike Pickett estimates that his daughter has handled nine interviews during the past week with national and international news outlets. Carson described the resulting hubbub as “wild.”
That’s a media schedule totally unfamiliar in a league that typically attracts only a fraction of the hoopla of the U.S. women’s national team, even though Orlando’s roster includes the likes of Alex Morgan, Ashlyn Harris and Ali Krieger — all part of the American squad that won the Women’s World Cup last month.
In its seven seasons, NWSL has struggled to build crowds, television ratings and salaries to sustainable levels. During the past two winters, Pickett has supplemented her career by lining up for the Brisbane Roar of Australia’s W-League on a short-term loan basis, in effect playing close to year-round soccer.
She’s hoping that the feats of Orlando teammates like Morgan will establish the NWSL, which suffered the demise of the Boston Breakers franchise in 2018, on firmer footing.
″[The Women’s World Cup victory] definitely put women’s soccer on the radar... it’s amazing, but they come back and they’re just like other Orlando Pride players,” she said. “The attention is on the league so much more, and I hope we inspire people.”
Count one young fan on that list. By now, she’s used to looking for Joseph and his family in the seats at Pride games.
“It’s great, the excitement that I get seeing him,” she said.
She’s hoping that her experience will inspire Joseph, and other children like him, to chase after their goals.
“The biggest thing,” she said, “is letting people understand that you can follow your dreams, no matter what.”
