ANAHEIM, CA–It would be a bit of an understatement to say that the Chicago Red Stars are in a rebuild. It’s more of a reset for the team under new ownership of the Laura Ricketts group and club president Karen Leetzow. The past few seasons have been marked with the former owner and coaches being named in a pair of investigations where the club fostered an environment of harassment and abuse. Mass departures followed and last season saw the Red Stars finish bottom of the league. Having Mallory Swanson injured for most of the season didn’t help in the slightest.
The emphasis is building a more player-first culture and a new marketing initiative according to Leetzow as she told CBS Sports’ Sandy Herrera. Assistant General Manager Babett Peter is assisting with head coach Lorne Donaldson with Friday’s NWSL Draft for the Red Stars. Leetzow told CBS that the club is “on the cusp” of hiring a new general manager.
More departures have taken place with Tierna Davidson going to Gotham FC and Casey Krueger going to the Washington Spirit. On Draft Day on Friday, the Red Stars made some more deals trading defender Arin Wright to Racing Louisville for the 15th overall pick and $125,000 in allocation money. The Kentucky native Wright will be playing closer to home after nine seasons with the Red Stars.
It’s not all departures as the Red Stars traded the third overall pick to Washington for defender Sam Staab. Staab was a finalist for the NWSL’s 2023 Defender of Year award and is a three-time NWSL Ironwoman having played every available regular-season minute for the third time in her career. Early last season, Staab set a new league record for most consecutive regular-season starts after passing fellow Spirit teammate Amber Brooks whose previous record was 72 consecutive starts.
The Red Stars traded down to the 10th pick from North Carolina for $175,000 in allocation money. With that pick, they selected Leilanni Nesbeth from Florida State. Nesbeth won two national titles with the Seminoles including this past season scoring twice and adding five assists.
With the 15th overall pick, the Red Stars selected forward Jameese Joseph from North Carolina State. The Red Stars traded the 17th overall pick to Seattle Reign for $125,000 in allocation money.
The process is likely to be a slow one as the Red Stars emerge from a dark period in their history. It will be mostly a new look side as they start their 12th season in the NWSL. Leetzow hopes that a more player-friendly atmosphere will help with the rebuild.
“We are singularly focused on the player experience. Including giving them the ability to compete at the highest level and all the resources they need to win,” Leetzow told CBS Sports. “That is our singular focus. If that translates, reverberates, throughout the rest of the organization the way I hope it will, I think you’ll find that all the other things will come from that. If you focus on the right things, you get to the right outcome. So that’s my hope. That if we stay focused on who this club is, it’s really the players, they make the club, then everything else will fall into place.”
