Maycee Nicole Bell (born September 18, 2000) is an American professional

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

player who plays as a defender for the

North Carolina Courage The North Carolina Courage are an American professional Association football, soccer team based in Cary, North Carolina, that competes in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). It was founded on January 9, 2017, after Stephen Malik acqui ...

of the

National Women's Soccer League The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) is a women's professional Association football, soccer league and the highest level of the United States soccer league system#Women's leagues, United States soccer league system (alongside the USL Supe ...

(NWSL). She played college soccer for the

North Carolina Tar Heels The North Carolina Tar Heels (also Carolina Tar Heels) are the college sports in the United States, intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The name Tar Heel is a nickname used to refer to ...

, where she was named All- ACC four times. She was selected by

NJ/NY Gotham FC Gotham Football Club is an American professional Association football, soccer team based in the New York metropolitan area that competes in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). Founded in 2006 as Jersey Sky Blue, the team was known as Sk ...

in the first round of the

2024 NWSL Draft The 2024 NWSL Draft presented by Ally was the twelfth annual meeting of National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) franchises to select from a list of amateur players above the age of 18 playing in the United States who exhausted, lost, or renounced ...

. She represented the United States at the youth international level.

Early life and college career

Bell was born in

Wichita, Kansas Wichita ( ) is the List of cities in Kansas, most populous city in the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Sedgwick County, Kansas, Sedgwick County. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of the city was 397, ...

, to former

college basketball College basketball is basketball that is played by teams of Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. In the Higher education in the United States, United States, colleges and universities are governed by collegiate athle ...

players Brett and Kristy Bell, and has five younger siblings. She began playing soccer as a

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People *Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Smal ...

but was converted to

center back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield player whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Defenders fall into four main categories: centre-backs, full-backs, sweepers ...

at her first youth national team training camp in 2014. She said she "realized I loved stopping people from scoring more than I actually loved scoring" and modeled her game partly after national team defender

Becky Sauerbrunn Rebecca Elizabeth Sauerbrunn (born June 6, 1985) is an American former professional association football, soccer player who played as a center back. She co-captained the United States women's national soccer team, United States national team wi ...

. Bell played one year of high school soccer as a freshman at Trinity Academy, scoring 19 goals at forward in 14 games, and was named Kansas's

Gatorade Player of the Year The Gatorade Player of the Year awards are given annually to up and coming high school student-athletes in the United States. They are given for boys baseball, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls cross country, boys football, boys and girl ...

for 2015–16. She moved to the

Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more t ...

area to play year-round with

ECNL The Elite Clubs National League (ECNL) is a national youth soccer developmental league in the United States. It was founded in 2009 as a girls' league and added a boys' league in 2017. Competition format The ECNL is divided by age groups from U- ...

club Sporting Blue Valley, which she captained from 2014 to 2017, and attended Blue Valley Southwest, Blue Valley West, and Insight School of Kansas. Bell moved to North Carolina in her senior year to play for the North Carolina Courage Academy and would train with the Courage first team during her college off-seasons.

North Carolina Tar Heels

Bell started for the

from her first week in 2019, when she was named the

Atlantic Coast Conference The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, the ACC's eighteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athlet ...

(ACC) Defensive Player of the Week. She scored a career-high three goals as a freshman, including one in the ACC tournament final and one during the NCAA tournament, where the team finished runners-up. She was named ACC Freshman of the Year and second-team All-ACC. She was named to the All-ACC first team for fall 2020, and she recovered from ankle surgery to return in the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament that spring. Bell was named first-team All-ACC and second-team All-American as a junior in 2021, though she injured her left ankle in the second-to-last match of the regular season. She sat out her senior year after tearing her

meniscus Meniscus may refer to: *Meniscus (anatomy), crescent-shaped fibrocartilaginous structure that partly divides a joint cavity *Meniscus (liquid) In physics (particularly liquid statics), the meniscus (: menisci, ) is the curve in the upper sur ...

in the first game of the 2022 season. She returned for a fifth year to co-captain North Carolina as a

redshirt Redshirt, Red Shirt, or Redshirts may refer to: Sports * Redshirt (college sports) Redshirt, in United States college athletics, is a delay or suspension of an athlete's participation in order to lengthen their period of eligibility. Typically ...

senior and was named to the All-ACC second team in 2023.

Club career

Gotham FC

Reigning NWSL champions

selected Bell with the 14th overall pick in the first round of the

, their sole pick of the night. She was signed to a three-year contract. On March 15, she made her professional debut as a substitute in the

NWSL Challenge Cup The NWSL Challenge Cup is an annual supercup competition organized by the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), a division 1 women's league in the United States soccer league system. The current (2025) cup holder is the Washington Spirit, who ...

, a 1–0 loss to the

San Diego Wave San Diego Wave Fútbol Club is an American professional soccer team based in San Diego, California, that competes in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). The team plays its home games at Snapdragon Stadium. Founded on June 8, 2021, the Wav ...

. She made her first regular-season appearance on April 20, coming in for

Bruninha Bruna Santos Nhaia (born 16 June 2002), known as Bruninha or just Bruna, is a Brazilian professional footballer, soccer player who plays as a right back. She plays for Gotham FC in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) as well as the Brazi ...

in a 2–1 away defeat to the

Washington Spirit The Washington Spirit are an American professional Association football, soccer team based in Washington, D.C. that competes in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). It is a continuation of the D.C. United Women of the USL W-League (1995� ...

. She earned her first start on May 8, taking Bruninha's place in a 1–0 win against the

Houston Dash The Houston Dash are an American professional soccer team based in Houston, Texas, that competes in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). The Dash began play in the 2014 season. The team plays its home games at Shell Energy Stadium. His ...

. On June 19, she scored her first professional goal in late stoppage time against the San Diego Wave, finishing off Jenna Nighswonger's cross to secure a 2–1 victory. She started four games in the

NWSL x Liga MX Femenil Summer Cup The NWSL x Liga MX Femenil Summer Cup () is a women's soccer competition between clubs from the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) of the United States and Liga MX Femenil of Mexico. The first edition took place in 2024, at venues in the Uni ...

, helping Gotham advance to the final. In half a season with Gotham, she made 13 appearances (7 starts) and scored 1 goal in all competitions.

North Carolina Courage

On August 21, 2024, Gotham FC traded Bell to the

for $80,000 in

allocation money In Major League Soccer (MLS) and the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), two of the top-tier professional soccer leagues in the United States, allocation money represents an amount of money that teams can use to sign players or allocate to thei ...

and $10,000 in intra-league transfer funds. She debuted for her former youth club on September 8, substituting late for

Felicitas Rauch Felicitas Rauch (born 30 April 1996) is a German professional footballer who plays as a defender for the North Carolina Courage of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) and the Germany national team. She previously played for Frauen-Bundesl ...

in a 4–1 win against the San Diego Wave. She finished her rookie season having made 2 substitute appearances for the Courage.

International career

Bell trained with the United States youth national team beginning at the under-16 level in 2014. She scored for the under-20 team in a friendly in March 2019 and recorded an assist at the

2020 CONCACAF Women's U-20 Championship The 2020 CONCACAF Women's U-20 Championship was the 10th edition of the CONCACAF Women's U-20 Championship, the biennial international youth association football, football championship organized by CONCACAF for the women's under-20 national teams ...

, which the United States won. She received her first call-up with the senior national team in December 2019 but had to miss the camp due to injury.

Honors and awards

Individual *

All-American The All-America designation is an annual honor bestowed on outstanding athletes in the United States who are considered to be among the best athletes in their respective sport. Individuals receiving this distinction are typically added to an Al ...

: 2021 (second team) *All- ACC: 2020, 2021 (first team); 2019, 2023 (second team) * ACC Freshman of the Year: 2019 * ACC tournament all-tournament team:

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

References

External links

*
Maycee Bell
at

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bell, Maycee Living people 2000 births Soccer players from Wichita, Kansas American women's soccer players Women's association football defenders United States women's youth international soccer players United States women's under-20 international soccer players North Carolina Tar Heels women's soccer players Gotham FC draft picks Gotham FC players National Women's Soccer League players North Carolina Courage players 21st-century American sportswomen African-American soccer players Soccer players from Overland Park, Kansas