On the day Colorado’s Golden girl was finally re-introduced in Summit FC green, general manager Curt Johnson spoke first, and said the word “project” exactly seven times in a 5-minute opening statement. The new women’s professional team is a project,Johnson emphasized, the symbolism ringing loud with the beepings of bulldozers around Centennial Stadium. The club needed a staff — starting with former Manchester City head coach Nick Cushing — of “builders,” Johnson said. It needed players who were builders, too.
“That leads you straight to Lindsey,” Johnson said.
That’s when Lindsey Heaps appeared, strolling through the doors of the new CommonSpirit Performance Center on Wednesday,. She smiled. She sat. And this project in Denver suddenly jumped a phase, from initiation to execution.
“I want to win everything,” Heaps said. “No matter what I’ve done in the past, there is still more to come. And what a challenge for me to come back to the (National Women’s Soccer League) and help us be a winning club, even from the get-go, even as an expansion team.”
Heaps couldn’t be happier to be home
Wednesday marked Summit FC’s long-awaited public unveiling of its cornerstone piece and hometown hero after signing the captain of the United States women’s national soccer team in January. The 32-year-old Heaps has now practiced three times with the club since completing her contract with Women’s Champions League powerhouse OL Lyonnes; she called it “surreal” to now be driving to work in her home state. And this transition is still a daze, Heaps said, after joining a 4-5-3 Summit team midway through its inaugural NWSL season.
Actually monitoring her new club’s fortunes has been rather difficult, of course, given that Lyon, France, is situated in a time zone eight hours ahead of Denver. Heaps won’t make her Summit FC debut until July 18 against the Portland Thorns, given the secondary transfer window opens July 14. Heaps said Wednesday she wished she could don the jersey sooner.
But make no mistake: Cushing and company are expecting life to change immediately in the still-developing acres around Centennial Stadium.
“You want my honest opinion, and probably Lindsey’s? It’s plug-and-play,” Cushing said. “At the highest level, it has to be.”
Heaps, the midfielder who captained the USWNT to a gold medal at the Paris Olympics in 2024, knows as much.
“I know I can’t play until the 18th, but I’ll do everything possible to help the team get ready for the game on Sunday,” Heaps said, referring to Summit FC’s match with the Houston Dash on July 12. “And then from then on out, I think you can expect the very best Lindsey.
“I should be raising the standard. Thatap what they brought me here to do.”
Was it an easy process bringing her here? No. Far from it — even as foregone a conclusion as Heaps’ Denver reunion might have seemed, for the Golden native and former Colorado Rush youth star. Johnson said on Wednesday that it “doesn’t take a rocket scientist” to figure out the club had a plan to target Heaps, even as he was still working through conversations with owner Rob Cohen about the general manager job. But earning her actual commitment took months.
Heaps’ very formations on the pitch, of course, are inseparable from the spirit of Colorado. Mother Linda Horan was her first coach and kept a Coaching-For-Dummies book lying around the living room because a young Heaps wouldn’t actually play soccer unless her mom was standing on the sidelines. After a decorated international and NWSL career, though — winning the league’s 2018 Most Valuable Player with Portland — Heaps wasn’t about to sign with any expansion team in Colorado just because it was an expansion team in Colorado.
The topper was the hire of Cushing, whose tactical brain Heaps called “incredible,” and who has been tasked for months with piloting a new club that has played without its star player. Ask Cushing, though, and Heaps has been in the mix despite being 5,000-plus miles away.
“The most pleasing thing for me was, while she was still really committed to Lyon and helping them get to a Champions League final, she was in regular contact with me about how to improve our team and how we’re moving forward and the ideas and the direction we were going in,” Cushing said. “So she’s been close to this from the moment that we started.”
Heaps of hope
She is now closer than ever, freewheeling in the direct center of the pitch at the Summit’s practice on Wednesday, where Johnson and Cushing always envisioned her being. Heaps can play deeper, Cushing said, or play more as an attacker. She’s told her head coach, too, that she wants to play in the box and score goals.
And — despite effusively praising the leadership of current Summit captain and longtime friend Janine Sonis — Heaps is determined, too, to erase the bitter taste of a 3-0 loss to Kansas City in the club’s last match.
“I think everyone can take that on their shoulder and say, ‘Thatap not good enough. Thatap not the standard,'” Heaps said. “Now we raise it and we know, like, ‘OK, was that rock bottom? That will never be the case again. We are not getting to that point again.’”
The future is now, and Heaps’ arrival will only stoke more fervor for women’s soccer in Denver, after the Summit’s foray into Empower Field in March drew over 63,000 fans, setting the national attendance record for a women’s professional sporting event. Heaps, too, put in her two cents for Denver to be named a site for the Women’s World Cup in 2031.
“I mean, I’ve seen the sellout crowds and the support that we get, the noise,” Heaps said. “And even going to the game last weekend, I was like, ‘This is amazing.’ So why would you not have Denver be a host city? I would hope for that.”
For now, though, she’s focused on the waxing and waning fortunes of Summit FC. The club currently sits 10th in the NWSL standings,with the top eight teams by season points . Getting there, with a midseason star addition, will be a challenge.
But Heaps’ return to Colorado has brought significant hope.
“I think itap incredible to add a player like Lindsey in the middle of the season,” Johnson said, as a glint twinkled in his eye.
“Or — after the first third of the season, maybe is a better way to put it.”
