SAN ANTONIO – “About 20 minutes.”
That’s all it took for Mabry Williams to accomplish a soccer and basketball trick shot that quickly took social media by storm in March with over 900,000 views on Twitter. Soon the video was being retweeted by some of the biggest names in sports – including FIFA Women’s World Cup and SportsCenter.
“All my friends texted me as soon as it happened, ‘Mabry I see you’re on the news, you’re on Good Morning America, that’s so cool! I know you,’” said Mabry who will be a freshman this fall at Johnson High School in San Antonio.
Mabry’s play even earned a 2020 ESPY nomination for Can’t-Stop-Watching Moment where she advanced in the voting to the quarterfinals.
“I was very surprised, but I was very happy with it,” she said. “I didn’t expect it to be nominated but me going on through the first round I already met my goal. I just want to go on through, I didn’t expect me to win it or even get to the finals. I was just glad I was on it.”
Mabry, a member of Classics Elite Soccer Academy, has been playing soccer for 11 years, trains daily and has achieved success at the ECNL (Elite Clubs National League) level; she was one of just 62 girls invited to the U.S. Soccer under 14 central regional youth national team minicamp in March.
“It was fun playing against like players that work just as hard as I do so I can see what I need to improve on to be better than them or try to be as good as them,” Mabry said.
The striker, who just turned 14 within the last two weeks, has taken her 9-year-old sister and fellow forward, Emma, under her wing. Emma said her sister shares her tricks and techniques and pushes her to work harder.
“She trains me all the time,” said Emma. “That just makes me a better player than just by myself trying to train. No matter what she would always go outside with me and help me on what I need to work on.”
The Williams sisters have dreams of playing Division I soccer and of making the ultimate roster: the US Women’s National Team – a goal that will take constant work – but not without some fun on the side.
“You need to like have fun while you’re doing it because if you’re not having fun while doing it, there’s no point because you want to enjoy it,” said Mabry.