No matter what our age, many of us have heroes throughout the athletic world. Their performance on the field amazes and delights us.

Even better, many of them, like Warrick Dunn, are just as amazing outside of their athletic pursuits. Meet player-coach Christie Rampone of the the Sky Blue FC from New Jersey. USA Today columnist Christine Brennan has an awesome article introducing Ramone.

Chrisitie, who has had an amazing career as an international player, took over as coach when her team’s head coach resigned. The fact that Rampone is the third coach the team has had this year makes it even more amazing that her team is now in the first ever championship game of Women’s Professional Soccer.

The challenges for Christie, a mother, have been huge: the team was in last place in the WPS when she took over, she played in international competition during the season, and also had surgery for a non-soccer related health emergency. She was able to guide her team to the 4th and final playoff spot and now Sky Blue FC is in the championship this Saturday in LA.

So here’s to Christie Rampone, a hero we should all get to know and whose example of courage, focus, and a lifetime of hard work we should do our best to follow. Good luck Sky Blue FC. BTW, our free fantasy football leagues for families are open and not surprisingly, moms like Christie are awesome at managing their teams.

From the article:

That Sky Blue has reached Saturday’s championship game in Los Angeles is a minor miracle, considering that Rampone is its third coach of the season. She, of course, is not a coach at all, but a longtime national team defender who quietly watched as Carla Overbeck, Julie Foudy, Joy Fawcett and Kristine Lilly, among others, retired or left the team, leaving her, finally, to be chosen as captain.

No one has ever doubted Rampone’s leadership skills on the field; it was a year ago Friday that her steady hand (not to mention her feet) led the USA to a surprising 1-0 upset against the swifter Brazilians in the Olympic gold medal match in Beijing.

But coaching? That is another matter.

Rampone arrived at practice early on July 29 to find that Sky Blue’s head coach, Kelly Lindsey, wasn’t there. When Lindsey did drive up, just as practice was supposed to begin, she told the team she was resigning, handed in her laptop bag and left.

“Everyone’s in shock, everyone’s just staring,” Rampone, who also is the Sky Blue team captain, recalled over the phone. “Our GM had told me I might have to run practice, so I just said, ‘All right, let’s go jog,’ and that’s what we did.”

The next day, Rampone was named player-coach.