Taylor Nicole Smith

Photography by: Peter Bonilla

TW: This article discusses suicide and depression.

Gotham FC’s recent reinvention has been a long time coming. Taylor Smith’s has been, too.

The 29-year-old National Women’s Soccer League veteran is part of a NY/NJ Gotham team that’s currently fifth in the league— and, in a tight playoff race, only three points shy of the San Diego Wave’s first-place position. That’s a far climb up the table from the team’s last-place finish in 2022.

Gotham’s on-the-field struggles turned next-season success has been just one way that Taylor has found her stride in recent years. While an abductor tear in June has sidelined Taylor in recent months— alongside a group of unfortunately-injured Gotham players— Taylor is used to overcoming challenges.

From speaking publicly about her mental health to connecting with other Black players in the league to navigating the first year of NWSL free agency, Taylor has been on a journey to empower herself and others through her longtime sport.

It’s an impressive path, but not irregular: top college recruit to NCAA national champion to pro champ to national team roster. Taylor’s path, on the surface, made sense for a player of her caliber. But, at a difficult point in her career, she felt like life was out of her control.

The Texas native had been a force on the soccer field ever since she was young— and also playing basketball and field hockey, running track, dancing, and participating in “everything under the sun,” Taylor said. She and her older sister— who played soccer at Texas Tech— both honed in on soccer into high school and college. Taylor captained the Fort Worth Country Day School varsity soccer team for three years and was a top-ranked college recruit.

Rightly so— she appeared in 87 games for women’s soccer powerhouse UCLA and won the 2013 national championship with the Bruins, scoring the game-winning golden goal in double overtime to beat North Carolina in the NCAA quarterfinals.

“I think you could just kind of feel it, with the roster that we had,” said Taylor. “It was like, ‘Okay, we can really do this.’ I think that kind of carried us through the tournament, and I think that belief made all the difference. You can have all the talent, but if you guys aren't on the same page and have that belief, it can turn out either way.”

Taylor found herself hoisting another championship trophy in her first year turned pro, this one with the NWSL’s Western New York Flash.

Unlike for a storied program like UCLA, on-the-field expectations were lower for the Flash, which had finished last in the NWSL the prior season. An undrafted rookie, Taylor earned a spot on the Flash’s 2016 season opening-day roster, alongside former UCLA teammates Abby Dahlkemper and Sam Mewis.

Despite a roster with rookies coming off a national title and a swath of experienced pro veterans, the Flash had a rocky start to its season. But, the team hit a stride around a third of the way through the league calendar and clinched the fourth and final seed in the NWSL playoffs. In the final, the Flash upset the Washington Spirit in penalty kicks to clinch the club’s first title.

“We were not winning, and so that's difficult for a team of people who are used to winning,” said Taylor. “We all just stayed true to our journey… somehow squeaked into playoffs, and then I guess that momentum kind of carried us through.”

Taylor grew close with several players who would again be her teammates later on in her career— like Mewis and Lynn Williams. Flash players would get coffee together after training and “hang out 24/7,” said Taylor.

“I feel like when you move to a professional workplace, everybody kind of usually wants to do their own thing but… we thoroughly enjoyed being around each other,” she said. “I feel so lucky to have had that my first year in the league, because I feel like it set the tone for my friendships the rest of my career.”

The championship run would be the Flash’s final season in New York— and Taylor’s, for now. The Flash were bought by new owners in North Carolina, relocated to Cary, and rebranded as the North Carolina Courage for the 2017 season.

Taylor’s showing on the Flash caught the eye of then-US Women’s National Team head coach Jill Ellis, and Taylor earned a national team training camp invite in January 2017. Her first cap was the following July, starting at right back against Australia in the 2017 Tournament of Nations. She also started two games in the 2018 SheBelieves Cup and totaled 10 appearances for the United States.

But, after that, she didn’t receive another call-up to the national team.

“It challenged me to grow so much,” she said. “And, you know, I'm still hopeful. Things can change so quickly… I'm gonna show up as my best self every day, no matter what that looks like, and you show up with that mentality— You never know what could happen.”

In early 2018, Taylor also faced major changes on the club side. North Carolina traded her and teammate Ashley Hatch to the Washington Spirit for Crystal Dunn’s player rights. She’d go on to sign with the Seattle Reign in 2019 and be traded back to North Carolina in 2021 before joining her current team, but amidst that, a loan to Australia’s Newcastle Jets changed her career.

At the end of the 2018 NWSL season, Taylor joined the W-League team down under. Fresh off earning the team’s Player of the Month honors in November, Taylor tore her ACL mid-December, six games into the loan. It was the 86th minute of a 2-2 draw in which Taylor supplied both of the Jets’ assists. An awkward fall, and an ACL tear.

“That whole year was probably the most devastating year of my life, honestly,” she said. “I had my family and friends behind me, but I think more importantly, the most valuable thing is I had to overcome this devastating thing with myself and be like, ‘Okay, Taylor, who are you really doing this for? This is an opportunity to prove to yourself that you're committed, you're disciplined.’”

Though never ideal, the injury was especially poorly timed, because Taylor had not been renamed as an allocated USWNT player for the 2019 NWSL season, and her rights were made available through a distribution draft for former allocated players. Injured and in between teams, Taylor was eventually acquired by the Reign via the discovery process.

“It was kind of a worst-case scenario,” said Taylor. “I'm out of contract, so no team has any sort of obligation to sign me and help me through this rehab. That was something I had to come to terms with, being like, ‘This is where you have to pick yourself up by your own bootstraps.”

Taylor isn’t a stranger to talking about this difficult period of her life.

In October 2022, for World Mental Health Day, Taylor joined friends and teammates Sam Mewis and Lynn Williams— Mewis at UCLA, then both at Western New York and North Carolina, Williams now at Gotham— on an episode of the Just Women’s Sports’ “Snacks” podcast to talk about her mental health journey. Over Zoom, with Mewis and Williams sitting shoulder-to-shoulder together on a couch, Taylor sat across from them— virtually— with black over-the-ear headphones and brave vulnerability.

Taylor shared with the pair— and Snacks’ listeners— about her depression, which she said began at a young age. She began therapy while in college but found herself feeling like her life was “out of control” when she faced a difficult sequence of events: tearing her ACL, being cut from the USWNT roster, and going through a breakup, all compounding. Her mind would race, and she would spiral, set off kilter by these massive life changes.

“You know how sometimes you just feel like you're kind of in survival mode?” Taylor said to Mewis and Williams. “I felt like I was in survival mode for 25 years, and it was just exhausting. You just can’t thrive when you’re in that state of mind.”

In 2021, Taylor was hospitalized after attempting to take her own life.

“I was just chronically down all the time. I genuinely felt like there was nothing in this world that was going to make me happy,” Taylor told listeners. “I truthfully felt like I would be better off if I wasn’t here.”

When she left the hospital, friends were there to support her in her recovery, but she said she still felt like she needed professional guidance, so Taylor sought out a psychiatrist.

In 2021, former North Carolina Courage coach Paul Riley was accused of sexual misconduct and verbal and emotional abuse of players in media reports and two formal investigations— one from USSF, the other by the NWSL. The Courage organization connected players with a trauma therapist amidst the fallout surrounding the now-banned coach.

“When everything kind of came out about our previous coach, I felt a lot of myself was kind of stripped away in that process,” Taylor told us.

Working with the trauma specialist “saved my life,” said Taylor. She found a non-judgemental space to improve at regulating her emotions, developing healthy coping mechanisms, and asking for help. She spends time meditating and visualizing the best version of herself.

“Working with her and having her validate my experience, and also being like, ‘Well, where do we go from here? How do we make you feel empowered again?’ has allowed me to build myself back up,” Taylor said.

She began journaling and reaching out to friends. On the podcast, she said that Mewis would sometimes make dinner for her, and Williams would help her schedule appointments. Her growth wasn’t an overnight fix, but rather, a journey to embrace each small improvement.

“I feel like that's when you notice the change in my play again,” Taylor said. “It’s more dynamic and being a threat against other teams. Once you feel empowered, it feels like you can do pretty much anything. You start to enjoy things again. You start to feel a sense of freedom that you didn't feel before.”

Taylor was the one who volunteered to share her story on Snacks; she wanted to share her journey and open a discussion about mental health in the sport.

“I think it is very important, having that visibility, because then it shows ‘I'm not alone in this,’” Taylor said. “I know other people have had really hard journeys in the NWSL, even just with what's recently come out about the league. I feel like it's really important that players lift each other up and be a helping hand.”

“Coming forward about mental health— for me, at least — I was hoping that it would be empowering for others. I feel like what got me through those dark places was working to find my own empowerment again. Dealing with certain people who have different agendas can feel like your power is being stripped away. Going through that journey of finding my love for the game again, finding empowerment of myself, honestly, was life-changing,” said Taylor. 

It’s the same desire that motivated her to come out gay publicly in 2017, sharing the announcement in a video on YouTube. She had known that she was gay growing up but felt like that was something to hide.

“I feel like something everyone should do is just celebrate themselves,” Taylor said. “A lot of players and a lot of staff are a part of [the LGBTQ+] community. I always take pride in being a person of color in that community… I want young Black girls to see themselves being in successful places.”

In June 2022, mid-NWSL season, Taylor began a new chapter, signing with NY/NJ Gotham FC after mutually parting ways with the Courage. “You can kind of sense when things don’t feel right,” she said about the move. “At that time, in the place where I was, things didn’t feel right.”

Taylor appeared in 14 games for Gotham throughout the last four months of the 2022 season, starting 13 and recording two goals and an assist. Before her thigh injury this June, Taylor played eight games for Gotham in 2023, starting five, with another goal and an assist.

“I came into Gotham and made an immediate impact,” said Taylor. “The team was great, and I enjoyed being here. Immediately, I felt the results of like, yes, like, this was the right decision. I can trust myself. I'm having a lot of fun, and I'm producing on the field. It was honestly, again, another empowerment moment, and I felt a lot lighter.”

Despite Gotham’s difficult 2022 season— winning just four of 22 games— Taylor said that she found herself enjoying the game, enjoying arriving to the locker room each day, as the team welcomed her with open arms.

“I just have to find the right place for myself,” Taylor said.

With four regular-season games remaining, the team is 7-6-5. Currently fifth, Gotham needs to finish sixth or above to clinch a playoff position.

“We feel like such a solid team,” said Taylor. New head coach Juan Carlos Amorós and the Gotham FC staff have provided a “meticulous” blueprint with a distinct identity for the team, said Taylor, which allows players to adapt and step up, regardless of position or whether the player is coming off the bench.

“Giving us a vision has really allowed us to kind of get more creative on the field,” she said. “We have a sense of confidence, because now we have more of an identity, we see the pieces that we have.”

“You get into high-level sports, and it's very easy for people to be like, ‘Oh, these are the starters. These are the subs,’” said Taylor. “I think it’s empowering for a lot of players to be like, ‘Hey, I'm not just being stuck and stuck in this role. Every day, I have the opportunity to be my best self and be appreciated.”

Off the field, Taylor has also had the chance to work with her Gotham FC teammates in a slightly different way.

Gotham forward Midge Purce co-founded the Black Women’s Player Collective in 2020, after the murder of George Floyd. Now, four of the seven board members are Gotham FC players— Purce, Williams, Ifeoma Onumonu, and Imani Dorsey.

“That was the first time that we all had gotten on like a Zoom call, all players of color in this league, to give ourselves kind of a safe space to speak our truth,” Taylor said. “It was not ideal circumstances that brought us together, but the fact that we did come together and create something that's going to have a lasting legacy is very powerful.”

On the field, Taylor hopes that the careers of her and her teammates can inspire young girls like her— ones that might be young, Black, gay girls growing up in a predominantly white school in Texas.

“I’d love to continue seeing us just celebrating Black players and celebrating what they're doing on and off the field— like building mini-pitches, having soccer available in different communities where it wasn't before,” Taylor said.

After the 2022 season, Taylor’s teammate, Purce, also gathered twelve NWSL players into two houses in Jupiter, Florida, to create an aptly-titled video series: “The Offseason.” The first season was more of a test run for the project that Purce hopes will grow in the future, said Taylor. This debut version lasted twelve weeks and offered the players a high-level training environment as they created social media content prepared for the following season.

Taylor took part in the first iteration of the Offseason, and looking ahead, future Offseasons could be a chance for players to tell their own stories and build their own brands, while expanding beyond solo offseason training opportunities.

“I'm someone who stays in the market, and Jersey in the winter is very cold, so it was nice to go to Florida, getting some sun, just trying fun stuff,” Taylor said. “I think these upcoming years, it's going to be great.”

This offseason— in the general sense of the word, not capital “o” Offseason— Taylor was also a part of the first class of 45 NWSL players able to tap into free agency as a part of the league’s new collective bargaining agreement. Twenty-three players resigned with their same team, including Taylor, who resigned with Gotham.

“I'm going to go where I’m wanted, where I'm valued. For a long time, it was, as players, you get signed to this team. You have no power. This is where you're stuck,” Taylor said. “Now, giving players more empowerment, you're going to have happier players. You're drawing more people to the league because you give them a sense of control and security.”

Now, in Taylor’s first full season with Gotham, the team is looking to make history. In 13 seasons— even in its pre-rebrand iteration that predates the NWSL, Sky Blue FC– the club has never finished higher than fourth in regular-season standings, though it did win the inaugural Women’s Premier Soccer championship in 2009. If Gotham can battle through injury woes, a few late-season wins could bump the team up into a history-making ranking.

While helping make history, Taylor is also getting to see more of New York and enjoy the sense of empowerment that’s come in this new chapter of her career.

“[I’m] celebrating myself, in a sense, and being really proud of who I am. I'm hoping that energy can transfer to others,” said Taylor. “I feel like I'm surrounded by a pretty good community that allows me to have a voice.”

As Taylor continues to share her story and speak out— empowering others, too— she shares one last piece of advice:

“The best advice I think I can give is: No matter what it looks like, always show up as your best self, even on the hard days, where it's easy to be like, ‘Oh, I’m not feeling it today.’ I have found that every day that I show up and give 100 percent, whether that's on the field or with my friends, it just shows that I'm reliable and trustworthy. Those are qualities that I admire in my friends and staff, and those are things I want to instill in myself. When you do that, you're kind of shocked at the progress that you've made. It keeps you grounded, and it keeps you able to enjoy the present moment and to make that decision every day— like ‘This is going to be a good day, and I'm going to make it the best day I can.’”

Photography by: Peter Bonilla

If you or a loved one is struggling with mental health, a reminder that 988 is the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.