Dear Abby Wambach,

In your recent farewell commercial sponsored by Gatorade, you asked the world to forget about you. "Forget my number, forget my name, forget I ever existed. Forget the medals won, the records broken, and the sacrifices made."

Someday, a soccer player will exceed the number of medals you have earned, surpass the records you have set, and endure the added stress of the sacrifices needed to eclipse your accomplishments. Your statistics will fade a little more with each game played without you on the roster, and announcers will reference your name and skills a little less during each broadcast.

Your medals, records, and sacrifices will be forgotten.

My favorite soccer coach growing up use to constantly say, "The number doesn't make the player, the player makes the number." People around the world vie to wear the number 20 because it represents the particular ability and spirit that you emulated on the field and will continue to exemplify off the field. Numbers can certainly be forgotten, but such pride in one person can not so simply be diminished from memory.

Your number, however, will be forgotten.

Here's the kicker, though; the momentum you have given to the sport of soccer, more specifically, to women's soccer, is monumental, and what's monumental can not be so easily forgotten. You are asking me, and the entire world, to forget your name and existence. I don't know about the rest of the world, but I am adamantly, in the most polite way possible, declining your request. You see, to forget your name and existence, would be to forget your picturesque career, that is, the soccer fairy tale that has revealed the most rare displays of athleticism seen in any sport throughout the world. It is not rare or special because of the physical achievements you attained on the field. It is extraordinary because of how you executed reaching those feats.

You played the game of soccer in its most pure form.

Abby Wambach, you set a mental precedent that embodied the spirit, sportsmanship, and dignity that every sport deserves to be played with. I realize that you did not do this alone, nor did you do this without guidance. The team that you were a part of established an exceptional standard of play, and that standard will continue to be upheld despite your departure. Team is everything in soccer—there can be no goal without an assist. Women's soccer has just begun to make its mark in history. One day it will, and you will have been one of the main assists in this goal.

I'm sorry, Wambach, I know soccer is more than one individual player, and I know the game leaves little room for hesitation and consideration, but knowing that I will never see another goal coming from your head again is a hard fact to accept. You asking to be forgotten from the sport is another fact, and fortunately for you, statistics and numbers mean very little to me. The numbered uniform is only worn for so many minutes, and the player within it can only be identified by it for so long. Eventually, that player becomes just a person, and that number is passed on to another.

"I want to leave a legacy where the ball keeps rolling forward." A perfect pass as always, Wambach, but the momentum you set calls for more than just another goal, and I don't think that should be forgotten. The person you are is too hard to forget.

I can't imagine the incredible things you are sure to accomplish in the future. If you want, I can try to forget those feats, but I won't make any promises.

Sincerely,

Keeping the ball rollin'.