Tobin Heath, a professional soccer player, is a significant creator on the pitch. At age four, Heath started her relationship with soccer and has played ever since. Born in 1988 in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, Tobin Heath grew up in a time of expansion yet limited time for women’s soccer. The United States Women’s National Team had just started three years earlier, in 1885, allowing her to dream of a future in professional soccer. She eventually joined the US soccer team in 2008 at 20 years old. At that time, she was playing collegiate soccer with North Carolina, where she would have much success. After finishing college, Heath played professional soccer in several places, both in the States and overseas, but she is most notably recognized for her time with the Portland Thorns.
I have been a fan of the USWNT since I was young, and Tobin Heath has always been one of my favorite players to watch. As a soccer player growing up, watching the national team was extremely empowering as they worked to expand the sport on and off the field. Tobin Heath has been instrumental in both spaces. On the field she is commonly referred to as a magician. Her impressive footwork has played a significant role in how the women’s game looks today. Heath has a unique way of creating plays on the field. She talks about how this art of the game was a prevalent part of the sport worldwide, yet it was limited in American soccer. Heath describes how American soccer was very formulaic and required specific qualities out of players, yet Heath cherished what made her different as a player. She is a collector of the sport, as she has been a fan of Brazilian soccer her whole life and has found ways to bring elements of that game style into her skills. Heath became an invaluable member of her team, as her creativity on the field helped lead her team to two World Cup wins and three Olympic medals, two of which were gold. For many soccer fans, watching a perfectly executed passing sequence or a combination of foot skills to beat a defender is a form of art, and Heath is a facilitator of this creativity on the field.
While Heath is very creative herself, she acknowledges she could only do it with collaboration. For starters, collaboration played a considerable role in the development of her creativity. Heath reflects on how the freedom her coaches gave her provided her space to be different. She describes how she gravitated towards teammates and coaches who encouraged her creativity. They acted as mentors that helped her to grow her game. In addition to her creative development, collaboration is key to what she could create on the field. Soccer is a team sport requiring many people to work together simultaneously. As an attacking player for the national team, she was typically working the most with two other players. Over her long tenure with the team, the most successful group of three were Tobin Heath, Alex Morgan, and Megan Rapinoe. Collaboration is useful in that it helps bring originality and success, which these three exemplify. As players, they each had a distinct style of play, allowing them to bring different elements in attacking third of the field. Their originality in their positions enhanced the creativity on the field. This unique combination of creative forms brought them success, as their main challenge was scoring, which they did a lot. Together, the three put on a dominant performance in the 2019 World Cup. Considering their collaboration style, I would describe it as Medium Q. Each of them was very familiar with the other, as they had worked together for a long time. Still, each brought a new perspective and skill to the team.
Tobin Heath has beliefs that are very similar to those of Rick Rubin regarding creativity. Heath is very aware of creativity's role in her life and cherishes it. Heath states, “Creativity is natural within all of us. I am a creator as an athlete…as an artist…and a million other ways.” In his book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rubin describes creativity as a fundamental part of being human. He has a very broad understanding of what creativity looks like and encourages his readers to see their way of life as creative. Heath perceives her work as creative, even though it is not a traditional form of creativity. Rubin believes that actively participating in creation requires awareness of one's self.
In addition to her understanding of creativity, Heath also relates to Rubin’s understanding of intention. He describes intention as the truth inside people that eventually becomes embedded in their work. Tobin Heath is intrinsically motivated, as the intention of her work is to bring her joy. She says she plays soccer because it brings her the most joy. Supporting Rubin’s argument, Heath’s love and joy for the game are shown through her creativity on the field. Intention for Rubin is more than a purpose; instead, it is a complete agreement with oneself. Of course, Heath has elements of extrinsic motivation, as she wants to win games and score goals, but she chooses to continue being a creative soccer player every day because it is who she is. As Rubin puts it, Heath continues to play soccer because it is the result of her commitment and capability.
Currently, Heath is injured and has not played soccer in a few years; it is undetermined if she will return. As she is no longer creating publicly as she once did on the field, Heath has found new ways to be a creator. With several of her teammates, Heath has started a new clothing brand called RE-INC. The main goal of this new creative endeavor is to create eco-conscious fashion while also impacting social change and uplifting women’s sports. To this day, Tobin Heath’s creativity has inspired me and many other young female athletes to be creative and break the domain.
Sources:
https://www.espn.com/espnw/story/_/id/26691046/magician-us-women-national-team-meet-tobin-heath
https://www.thecreativefactor.co/articles/tobin-heath-loves-to-paint
https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/2020/09/before-they-were-stars-tobin-heath
https://www.timbers.com/players/tobin-heath/
https://re-website.com/pages/impact
I love that you wrote about her as a creative. I have never thought about an athlete like that, but your did a wonderful job at showing why Heath is a creative. I loved reading about the collaboration, I went to Megan Rapinoe's last game this fall and have done an entire project on Alex Morgan's sports statistics/economics on her PK accuracy, so I loved reading more about heath. The connection to Rubin was greater and I really enjoyed reading this.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love this choice as a creative. Growing up as a soccer player, every girl wanted to be Tobin Heath. Alex Morgan and Abby Wambach may be better known, but there as always been something special about Heath's style of play, and I feel you have captured that perfectly here. She truly is a magician and it takes a creative to be able to play like that for sure.
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