Erica Westly tells the story of the National Soccer Alliance, the first professional women's soccer league, and the decades of unequal treatment leading up to the current pay dispute between members of the USWNT and the US Soccer Federation.

Previously by Molly Priddy: My Secular Patron Saints In February 2002, when I was a junior in high school, a house burned down in Missoula, Montana. Houses can do that, burn to the ground – it's not entirely uncommon here, especially in the winter when heating systems can go awry. But in our city, considered to be the liberal, blue freckle on an otherwise very red state, even more important than the ashes was what…

Starting about two months before the first kick-off launches FIFA’s World Cup, every Peruvian family gathering involves at least two people exchanging small rectangular stickers with a player’s face photoshopped onto a jersey. Just the other night, at my best friend’s birthday lonche, I sat with a cousin, each going through the other’s stack of repetidas seeing if we had any to exchange. “Ya la, No la” (“Got It, Don’t Got it”) are the phrases…