The North Carolina Courage tradition is to begin each practice with a joke. They don’t warm up or kick balls until that joke’s been told. In the first training session of 2021, the team stood huddled together on the practice field, wondering who would tell the first one of the season. To everyone’s surprise, newly signed defender Carson Pickett said, “I’ve got one.”
“Where do the people with one hand go shopping?” she asks. The team waits for it — Carson flashes a smile and delivers the punchline. “The second-hand store.”
The team, and Carson — who is missing a left hand and left forearm — cracked up.
“It was the elephant in the room,” says team captain Abby Erceg. “How do you approach someone with one arm? Do you talk to them about it directly? Do you ignore it? You don’t know what the rules are. So for her do to that, to break ice with everybody at the same time, was awesome. It was like, ok, she’s really cool. You could tell she was making people feel comfortable about her arm. I think that sums up who she is. Rather than her being comfortable, she wants everyone else to be comfortable.”
Pickett is the first person with a limb difference to play for the U.S. women’s national team — although when her friends from home first heard the game announcers share that factoid, they were momentarily puzzled. Were they talking about Carson? They’ve never thought of her that way.
