If Jasmyne Spencer could go back in time and tell her 22-year-old self one thing as she kicked off her professional career, it would be this: enjoy it.
Perspective is tough for most people in their early 20s, but for an athlete new to the professional ranks, it can be especially challenging. “You're so focused on achieving your goals and making a roster or the starting lineup or whatever,” she says. “Now looking back, I'm like, ‘Wow, I've been able to accomplish so much that I didn't even realize at the time, because I was so focused on proving a point.’”
That perspective, built over a ten-year NWSL career, has been invaluable to Angel City in their inaugural season. Spencer is one of the most experienced pros in the league, and she’s drawn on that experience to act as a steadying presence for a team that’s seen highs and lows this year.
Her next appearance will be her 150th in the NWSL. Her first reaction: “Holy smokes.”
Thinking it over for a moment, she adds, “I feel like it's been a lot of time, but not a lot of time. The growth of the league and women’s soccer in general over that period of time has been amazing. But I feel like this time for women athletes is really special—so at the same time, it feels like the beginning.”
Spencer’s career has spanned an era of massive transformation in the women’s game, and it’s been a rollercoaster. In 2012, she was selected in the Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS) draft by the Philadelphia Independence. That league folded before the season could begin.
When the NWSL came along in 2013, following a one-year hiatus between the two pro leagues that Spencer spent with the semi-pro New York Fury, she signed with the Washington Spirit.
Next came a two-year stint in Rochester with the Western New York Flash, then Orlando in the Pride’s first two seasons, then three years with the Reign, and finally a one-season stop in Houston. Soccer has also taken her to Sweden, Cyprus, and Australia. The Long Island native, who plans to settle down back home with her husband once she retires, says getting to live in different places has been one of the perks of the job. “For this period of our life, we're just enjoying traveling and getting to experience new things.”
Spencer’s time in Orlando in their inaugural season has been especially valuable for the Angel City defender.
With the resources of the MLS Orlando City SC at their disposal and a pledge to treat the men’s and women’s teams equally, the Pride marked a new chapter for the league. “They made a statement that they were going to do things different, in terms of giving everything the men's team had to the women… I think they really pushed the league forward when they came in.”
Despite the positive start, that season—as most expansion seasons are—was a challenge.“ I think for that season, we thought because we had all these resources and we had such a great team, that we were going to be phenomenal. And we were ignorant to the fact that you have to build everything from scratch.”
“You have to build your identity in terms of your style of play,” she continues. “You have to build the relationships with the coaching staff and [decide] how you're going to represent the community. There are things that you don't think about that really affect the long-term results throughout the season.”
So when Angel City’s season was getting underway, Spencer was one of the veterans who brought some much-needed perspective to the locker room. An early reality check came with the Challenge Cup, when the team drew their first match and then lost the next four in a row.
“I think we felt like in training we were a good team, and so automatically it was going to translate into results,” she remembers. “When we weren't getting those results in the Challenge Cup, it was emotionally tough. But there were a couple of times where not just myself but other veterans said, ‘listen, this league is nuts. It's going to be this way. It's okay. We just have to learn.’”
That laid the foundation for what is, on the field, a hard-working team that’s weathered a lot of setbacks to arrive at the last month of the season in contention for a playoff spot. “It takes that level of hard work, and commitment, and determination, and just grittiness,” she says, “especially in this league, to dig out points to put yourself in a position to be in the playoffs at the end of the season.”
For Spencer, the biggest task this first season has been establishing an identity as a group. “Everybody wants to win a championship,” she says. “But I think more importantly, we need to establish a foundation here off the field that is going to set the club up for success in the long term.”
Part of the team’s identity—and the identity of the club as a whole—is a community-mindedness that Spencer has exemplified throughout her career. Spencer has a sustainable clothing brand called Jas it Up and is proactive about using her platform to promote causes she believes in.
Recently, she's been using her social media platform to support California Assembly Bill 256, which would extend protections against racial bias in the courtroom established in the Racial Justice Act of 2020. Under the existing law, defendants can challenge convictions they believe were influenced by racial and ethnic bias, but only dating back to January 2021; AB 256 would allow challenges to older cases.
“It's another step in trying to tackle systemic racism in terms of trying to remove racial bias out of arrests and prosecutions in California against black and brown people,” Spencer says.
“And it's a big election year,” she adds. “We want to really turn out and represent for these midterm elections in November.”
Spencer has also been active in the NWSL Players Association since its inception. The growth of the PA is another sign of how the sport has transformed over the course of her career. “It’s a really short time, I think, to have been able to secure a CBA… It doesn't seem like work. It doesn't seem like I'm fighting. It just seems like I'm just doing what needs to be done because it's the right thing to do.”
For now, though, the focus is on Angel City’s playoff push. “We're still in full control of our destiny,” she explains. The team is currently one point outside of playoff position, with at least one game in hand over all the teams in the top six. “We're just going to focus on one game at a time and keep chipping away.”
As she’s learned in a decade in the professional ranks, “All you can do is focus on yourself.”
