Fast Facts:

Full Name: Angela Khalia Hucles
Born: July 5, 1978 in Virginia Beach, Va.
Hometown: Virginia Beach, Va.
Height: 5’7”
College: Virginia
Statistics

Angela Hucles knows how to pick her moments on a soccer field – how to size up the situation and make the most of her opportunities. It’s a quality that has served her well in her quest to become a National Team regular.

Hucles, a schoolgirl scoring sensation at Norfolk (Va.) Academy, attended the University of Virginia and played four all-ACC seasons (1996-99) for current Women’s National Team coach April Heinrichs. Before graduating, she shattered the school’s career scoring record with 59 goals. At the same time, she spent three years with the U-20 National Team. A stint with the WUSA’s Boston Breakers put the final polish on her game, and she was called into her first Women’s National Team camp in September of 2001.

She earned her first cap against Finland on April 27, 2002, and scored her first goal on November 6, against Costa Rica, but didn’t really crack the WNT starting lineup until 2003. That year she earned 15 caps and made six starts. The performance earned her a spot on the Women’s World Cup roster, but a shin injury kept her on the sidelines for the duration of the tournament.

Angela has had her most productive year with the WNT in 2004. She scored three goals in the first two games of the Algarve Cup in Portugal, and also found the back of the net in friendlies against Mexico and France. Oh, and she picked up an Olympic Gold Medal along the way, in Athens.

Angela didn’t pick soccer as her sport, but it didn’t take long for her talent to emerge. Her mother signed her up for her first youth league at age 7, after young Angela’s distaste for early mornings and cold water made it clear that competitive swimming was not going to be her cup of tea. For six years, she played with boys’ teams, before joining an U-13 girls’ squad.

By the time she got to Norfolk Academy, she was a dominant player on the pitch. Good enough to join the varsity team in seventh grade, she finished with an impressive 204 goals and 106 assists. She also spent four seasons in U.S. Soccer’s Olympic Development Program before moving on to UVA.

At Virginia, Heinrichs began the process of giving her run-and-gun wunderkind a more complete game, especially in setting up and working off of her running mates. It was in the highly competitive environment of the WUSA that Angela was best able to polish her game. As a teammate of veteran national teamers Kristine Lilly and Kate Sobrero (now Markgraf), she made steady progress into the league’s elite. As a rookie in 2001, she scored the first goal in Breakers history, in a preseason exhibition against Duke University, made 21 appearances with 19 starts, and scored twice in league play. In 2002, she was a reserve on the WUSA North All-Star Team, and finished the season with three goals and four assists. In 2003, her best WUSA season, she started 17 games and helped the Breakers to their only playoff appearance with a goal and four assists.

Although Angela was the first member of her family to embrace soccer, the sport has become a family affair in the Hucles household. Younger brother Phil captained the men’s soccer team at the College of William and Mary. Her father, Michael, is a referee. And Angela’s mother Janis Sanchez-Hucles, a Professor of Psychology at Old Dominion University, has helped both Heinrichs and WNT mental skills coach Colleen Hacker educate coaches about diversity and gender issues in order to increase opportunities in soccer for women of color and women in general.

Angela graduated from UVA with a degree in anthropology. While with the Breakers, she wrote a women’s sports column for Boston Metro, and she’s learning the guitar with the aim of forming a band with some of her former WUSA teammates. She enjoys basketball and golf, and listening to a wide variety of music.