Sarah Dwyer-Shick

SPARK PRESENTER. Founder, The Sports Bra Project; Soccer Coach

A three-sport athlete in college, Sarah earned a Bachelor’s degree from Smith College and a Master’s degree in Sports Management at the University of Denver. After a 15-year collegiate soccer coaching career that included stops at each of the NCAA’s three divisions, Sarah has turned her coaching focus to youth development. As owner of SJI Training she has worked with numerous youth clubs as coach and consultant. Sarah also served for five years as Director of Coaching for New York’s Girls North Olympic Development Program (ODP) and coached for eight years with the NY Rush/Patriots Club.

While working with soccer programs in South America and Africa, Sarah saw firsthand the obstacles faced by many girls and women were ones that we rarely consider in the U.S. When she travelled to Namibia in 2014 she brought a modest collection of sports bras to give to the Director of the NFA Women’s Desk for use in her programs. “I naively thought they would be given to girls and women participating in programs in remote areas. Instead they were given to Namibian National Team players, many of whom had never owned a true sports bra”. That was a true wakeup call and the beginning of The Sports Bra Project, the philanthropic partner of the 2018 WCS!

Sarah states, “Opportunities and programing are great, but if you don’t have the proper equipment even the best program becomes inaccessible. Having programs, fields and equipment in sight, but not being able to access them is something that resonates with a lot of women of my generation. If we can help address the relatively small obstacle of an appropriate Sports Bra, opportunities become more accessible and more girls and women can experience the love of sports that we now often take for granted.

Dwyer-Shick is currently the Assistant Girls Technical Director at Downtown United Soccer Club in Manhattan, and the Assistant Men’s Coach at Dutchess Community College.

Sarah Dwyer-Shick