Gone are the days when Trinity Rain Rodman lived on her father’s name. Trinity is a Star in Her Own Rightas the Americans call it. The 21-year-old attacker is the face of a new generation of black football players, who are fighting for the fifth world title with the United States at the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand with old white stars such as Alex Morgan (34) and Megan Rapinoe (38).
Trinity encounters Thursday (03:00 Dutch time) with Team USA in the second group match in the New Zealand capital Wellington against the Orange. “Everyone sees the US as one of the favorites for the title based on the past,” Trinity told the news agency Reuters for the World Cup. “There are a lot of new players. And many new automatisms have to be learned. But we want to become world champions again.”
Born on May 20, 2002 in Newport Beach, Trinity has struggled against the high expectations for almost her entire life. During her teenage years as a football player with the Southern California Blues, she mainly goes through life as the daughter of the famous top basketball player Dennis Rodman, although he pays little attention to her.
She is raised in California along with her brother Dennis Thayne by her mother Michelle Moyer. That is the third ex-wife of the wayward athlete, who won the championship twice with the Detroit Pistons and three times with the Chicago Bulls. In the latter team, Dennis Rodman formed a magical trio with megastar Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen.
Hardly any contact
Trinity only gets to know her father by watching old footage of him with her brother. She has little or no contact with the eccentric star during her childhood, but is proud of the Bulls defender who is regarded as one of the best rebounders ever known in the NBA. At the age of nine, Trinity gets a close look at her father’s greatness as a player, when she was allowed to join him on the day he secured a place in the Hall of Fame got. During his speech, the former basketball player confesses one thing that day: “I wish I had been a better father”.
Trinity later learns about her father’s pranks through documentaries. He is an unpredictable person. Someone who completely goes his own way and doesn’t take it so closely with the prevailing rules. ‘Debauched’ is the best way to describe Dennis Rodman’s lifestyle in one word. In his autobiography Bad as I Wanna Be he tells about his short-lived relationship with singer Madonna, who would have been looking for a child with him in vain.
Spotlights
Michelle Moyer has long managed to keep her son ‘DJ’ and daughter Trinity out of the spotlight, but that is now completely impossible. Her eldest son follows the same path as his father. He recently traded the Washington State basketball team for the USC Trojans of the University of California – where he now plays with LeBron James’ son. The promising ‘DJ’ Rodman is preparing for the American professional league NBA. Trinity’s younger sister is the status of coming star already over.
Trinity has broken all kinds of records in recent years. When in 2021 at the age of eighteen second pick from the Washington State Cougars to the Washington Spirit, she is the youngest drafted player ever in the National Women’s Soccer League (N.W.S.L.). And she becomes the youngest player to score in a debut match.
She does that after five minutes. Trinity is completely surprised when her father suddenly shows up at one of her matches later that year. The two fall into each other’s arms, in front of everyone.
“I was shocked, overwhelmed, happy, sad, everything”, she writes on Instagram after the duel. “My father does not play a major role in my life at all. Sometimes months, if not years, go by without me hearing from him. But he is my father and I am his little girl. And that will never change.”
As a professional football player, Trinity wants to deal with critics who argue that she mainly lives on her last name as quickly as possible. She wants to write her own history. And so far it has succeeded with flying colours. She is proclaimed Rookie of the Year and is considered one of the most important players of the Spirits championship team. Trinity is coached in the American capital by the British Mark Parsons – who later failed as national coach at the Orange. On February 2, 2022, she signs as ‘The New Big Thing’ a four-year contract worth $ 1.1 million ($ 248,000 per year), making him the highest-paid player in the NWSL.
Fast advance
Two weeks after signing the lucrative contract, Trinity makes her US debut. And she scored her first goal before she was twenty The Stars and Stripes. She confirms her rapid advance by scoring both goals of the 2-0 victory during the ‘goodbye game’ of the US in San Jose against Wales.
Trinity is a mix of her mother and her father as a football player. She inherited her water-quickness from former athlete Michelle Moyer. It is perhaps the most important weapon of the right winger who will face the Dutch Esmee Brugts in Wellington. And from her father, Trinity has the absolute will to win. Every duel. For every metre. For every ball. In other words: hunting.
I don’t just want to be known as Trinity Rodman the football player. I want to inspire young girls
Like Dennis Rodman always throwing his whole body into battle for a rebound, Trinity always pushes to the limit. It gives the United States a penalty in the first group match against Vietnam when Trinity perseveres in the 44th minute until she is knocked out in the penalty area. Penalty. During her eighteenth international match, she watches from the edge of the penalty area as the experienced Alex Morgan from eleven meters misses hopelessly in the game that the US will win 3-0.
Trinity differs a lot from her father off the field. She won’t dream of missing training to show up at parties or gamble in casinos. Trinity is rather an exemplary professional. In the run-up to the World Cup, she asked the older players how she could best close herself off to the outside world during the tournament. She prefers to spend her free hours in New Zealand reading, coloring and playing Fortnite.
Trinity not only belongs to the group of fourteen World Cup debutants, but is also an example for the youngest generation of color within the very diverse selection of national coach Vlato Andonovski. A role she fulfills herself with devotion. “If I look around, after every game I see ten to twenty girls who could be my sister,” Trinity Rodman told the World Cup before the World Cup. San Francisco Chronicle. “I always look and smile kindly at them. Because I don’t just want to be known as Trinity Rodman the football player. I want to inspire young girls. As Trinity, I want to be a name and a face for women of color.”