Seattle Reign FC Legend: Julie McCleery – Professor, Researcher, Youth Advocate and Mom
The Legends Campaign, a partnership between Seattle Reign FC and Starbucks, honors women for their extraordinary contributions to our community in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. Prior to Seattle Reign FC’s match against the Houston Dash, the club recognized Julie McCleery – a professor, researcher, youth advocate and mom.
McCleery’s career is firmly rooted in her passion for safety, equity and quality in youth sports. As a professor, researcher, advocate and mom to three children, she unequivocally believes that every child deserves the opportunity to be active and play and move joyfully.
A lifelong athlete herself, McCleery was a rower in college and went on to row for the U.S. National Team before becoming a coach for the team. At the same time, she was pursuing a career pathway centered around education and teaching. She holds a bachelor's from Georgetown University, master's from Harvard and PhD. from the University of Washington and is now pursuing a law degree at Seattle University.
Her combination of experience and education naturally led her to a career with the Center for Leadership and Athletics at UW, a role heavily focused on teaching, policy and research. Her research has primarily been rooted in youth sports, more specifically coaching and best practices for coaches to develop athletes who can both perform well and be holistically supported.
With added experience coaching youth sports, she remains a steadfast advocate for improving youth access to sport, recreation and great coaching, while addressing barriers and opportunities for youth sport and physical activity.
“I was coaching my own kids in their youth sports endeavors, and I just thought, well, we could train coaches. We all want to be great coaches, but the system that they're operating in, in youth sports isn't working well and I wanted to understand more about that youth sports system to see how we could better understand just the full landscape in order to better support coaches and young athletes.”
This drove McCleery to launch into a research project on the local sports landscape, entitled State of Play: Seattle King County. The project was an analysis of youth access to sport, play and outdoor recreation in King County. The report, officially published in 2019, had around 40 findings, paired with a series of recommendations.
This report was the catalyst for the creation of a group called the King County Play Equity Coalition, with the mission of addressing the findings of the report. McCleery helped to co-found and incubate the King County Play Equity Coalition over the five years from 2019 to 2024 and it is now its own thriving nonprofit organization.
McCleery’s impressive resume of career experience has been bolstered by another pivotal role she plays in her life; She’s a mother to three children. It hasn’t always been easy to balance a busy career and raising children, but she cites flexibility as one of the key components to finding success.
"I would say that sort of the main thing is just being flexible and being adaptable and making it a priority to show up for my kids and their events and activities whenever I could and then also making time to get my work done simultaneously.”
She continued, “What ‘balance’ looks like is going to be different throughout the journey of parenting. I went through a lot of iterations of trying to find a good balance. For example, it took me 10 years to get my PhD because I was the primary caregiver for three young children, and I prioritized more time at home. As they got older, I shifted to more of a full-time job. Everyone's balance is different. Also, give yourself grace as both a professional and as parent. Having it all or doing it all perfectly is a trap. Do your best and do what feels right to you at a given point in time and don't be afraid to adjust your path or your expectations along the way.”
As a mother, McCleery gained experience as youth sports coach and witnessed firsthand the imbalance that often exists between men and women in the sports world.
"Sports is a space where there are not a lot of women in leadership positions, in coaching or in in sports leadership in general. So, it's amazing, that the Reign provides us a great visible opportunity to see women in in leadership positions. I think that's absolutely vital in sports,” she said.
“I had the opportunity to coach Little League Baseball for a number of years and found myself to be one of the only women often in in Little League spaces. The advice that I would give is that if it's something you want to do, even if you don't see other women doing it. Go do it. Go figure it out. It is so important especially that in youth sports, our kids see women in leadership positions because only 25% of these sports coaches are women, and that number has not budged in a very, very long time. Women absolutely have the capacity to be great coaches and be great leaders, and our kids need to see them there,” she encouraged.
McCleery expressed her gratitude for this recognition and emphasized the importance of continuing to draw attention to the inequities faced in sports.
"I was surprised, thankful and grateful,” shared McCleery. “It means a lot coming from an organization like the Reign because I have been a champion in the sports space for women to both coach and play, and for there to be equity in sports for girls and women. To have that be recognized feels validating and hopefully increases visibility of the importance of continuing to strive for equity in sports spaces for women and all folks who are marginalized from sports.”