How Carli Lloyd became one of NJ’s most revered athletes

New Jersey’s own World Cup soccer champion, Carli Lloyd, was born on July 16th, 1982. She grew up in Delran and graduated from Delran High School where she was a Parade All-American soccer player twice. She then starred at Rutgers where she became the first Rutgers athlete to be named All-Big East four years in a row; in 2013 she was inducted into the Rutgers University Hall of Distinguished Alumni and was also inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2017.

As a professional and international player, Carli Lloyd's accolades are too numerous to mention (although if you want to see some of them they can be found on her website), but some of the highlights would have to include two Olympic Gold Medals (2008 & 2012) and two World Cup titles (2015 & 2019). She has also been named the FIFA Player of the Year twice. She is the only player to score a goal in six consecutive World Cup games and is third all-time in goals scored by an American in World Cup play. She scored the gold medal winning goas in consecutive Olympics.

Carli Lloyd had planned on playing on this year’s Olympic team in the Tokyo games and then possibly retiring, but she told the LA Times that she plans on postponing that decision for awhile, saying “I wasn’t sure when I would officially retire. So now I have the opportunity to stick around for another year and it would be a dream come true to win gold with my teammates. That would be satisfying enough for me to officially retire.” The Tokyo Olympics were postponed because of COVID-19 are now scheduled for July and August of 2021.

Professionally, Carli is a member of the Sky Blue FC in Piscataway (that’s the team Governor Murphy owns), although a knee injury kept her out of this year’s NWSL Challenge Cup. She still lives in South Jersey with her husband (and high school sweetheart) Brian Hollins. She is the author of the New York Times Bestseller, When Nobody Was Watching: My Hard-Fought Journey to the Top of the Soccer World.

Happy birthday to Carli Lloyd, a Jersey great!

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Bill Doyle. Any opinions expressed are Bill Doyle's own.