Rachel Marie Buehler Van Hollebeke ( ; ; born August 26, 1985) is an American former soccer player who last played as a defender for the

Portland Thorns FC Portland Thorns FC is an American professional Association football, soccer team based in Portland, Oregon, that competes in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). Established in 2012, the team began play in 2013 in the then-eight-team NWSL ...

and the

United States women's national soccer team The United States women's national soccer team (USWNT) represents the United States in international women's soccer. The team is governed by the United States Soccer Federation and competes in CONCACAF (the Confederation of North, Central Ameri ...

. In 2015, Van Hollebeke retired from playing professional soccer, and soon after began attending medical school at

UC San Diego School of Medicine The University of California, San Diego School of Medicine is the graduate medical school of the University of California, San Diego, a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in La Jolla, California. It wa ...

. In 2020, Van Hollebeke joined the ownership group of

Angel City FC Angel City Football Club is an American professional Association football, soccer team based in Los Angeles, California, that competes in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). The formation of the team was announced on July 21, 2020; it beg ...

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 ...

Early life

Stanford University

Van Hollebeke attended

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

, where she was named by the NCAA Honors Committee as a recipient of the NCAA Top VIII Award, and completed her senior year in 2007, majoring in human biology/pre-medicine. A three-year captain for the

Cardinal Cardinal or The Cardinal most commonly refers to * Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds **''Cardinalis'', genus of three species in the family Cardinalidae ***Northern cardinal, ''Cardinalis cardinalis'', the common cardinal of ...

, Van Hollebeke was an All-Pac-10 Conference First-Team selection, an NSCAA First-Team All-American Scholar Athlete, and was chosen as the

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

Academic All-American of the Year. As a redshirt junior in 2006, she was one of two players in the conference to be selected in the All-Pac-10 First Team and the Pac-10 All-Academic First Team.

Club career

FC Gold Pride, 2009

On September 16, 2008, Van Hollebeke was one of three members of the 2008 Beijing gold medal team allocated to the brand new

Santa Clara, California Santa Clara ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for "Clare of Assisi, Saint Clare") is a city in Santa Clara County, California. The city's population was 127,647 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of cities and towns i ...

, club

FC Gold Pride FC Gold Pride was an American professional women's soccer club based in the San Francisco Bay Area, which participated in Women's Professional Soccer (WPS). The club replaced the San Jose CyberRays of the defunct Women's United Soccer Associati ...

, along with

Nicole Barnhart Nicole Renee Barnhart (born October 10, 1981) is an American retired soccer player who played as a goalkeeper. She played professionally for FC Gold Pride and Philadelphia Independence in Women's Professional Soccer, and FC Kansas City, Utah ...

and

Leslie Osborne Leslie Marie Osborne (born May 27, 1983) is a retired American soccer defensive midfielder who last played for the Chicago Red Stars in the NWSL in 2013. She is a former member of the United States women's national soccer team and previously pl ...

. FC Gold Pride, coached by former San Jose Clash midfielder Albertin Montoya, was the seventh and final club named in 2008 to compete in the inaugural season of

Women's Professional Soccer Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) was the top-level professional women's soccer league in the United States. It began play on March 29, 2009. The league was composed of seven teams for its first two seasons and fielded six teams for the 2011 ...

(WPS) the following year.

Portland Thorns FC, 2013–2015

On January 11, 2013, Van Hollebeke was one of three members from the United States women's national team that was allocated to the new

NWSL 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 ...

club

, along with

Alex Morgan Alexandra Morgan Carrasco (born Alexandra Patricia Morgan; July 2, 1989) is an American former professional association football, soccer player.She co-captained the United States women's national soccer team, United States national team with ...

and

Tobin Heath Tobin Powell Heath (born May 29, 1988) is an American professional soccer player and entrepreneur. Playing primarily as a forward and midfielder for the United States national team, she won gold at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, 2012 Lon ...

. On August 23, 2015, Van Hollebeke announced her retirement from international and professional soccer at the conclusion of the 2015 National Women's Soccer League season. During her three seasons with Portland Thorns FC, she won the 2013 NWSL Championship, 2013 Portland Thorns FC Defender of the Year, and 2013 NWSL Second XI honors. Additionally, Van Hollebeke played an active role in community events through the club's Stand Together community platform and was named 2014 Community Player of the Year for all of her efforts.

International career

Van Hollebeke has played on several U.S. national youth teams, including U-16 and U-17, and was a member of the first place

2002 FIFA U-19 Women's World Championship The 2002 FIFA U-19 Women's World Championship was held from 17 August to 1 September. It was the first sanctioned youth tournament for women put together by FIFA. The tournament was hosted by Canada. FIFA granted the tournament to Canada in March ...

in Canada and the third place team at the 2004 FIFA U-19 Women's World Championship in Thailand. She joined the national team training camp in July 2006 and debuted for the full team in March 2008 at the Algarve Cup in Portugal. Van Hollebeke was named to the 2008 U.S. Olympic women's soccer team on June 23, 2008. She appeared in two matches, chipping in with one assist. She was also chosen for the

2011 FIFA Women's World Cup The 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup was the sixth FIFA Women's World Cup competition, the world championship for List of women's national association football teams, women's national association football, football teams. It was held from 26 June to ...

squad and scored on the USA's opening game against

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders China and Russia to the north at the Yalu River, Yalu (Amnok) an ...

. Van Hollebeke was part of the team that won the gold medal at the

2012 London Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012, were an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...

. Van Hollebeke appeared in all six matches and played all but 35 minutes of the United States gold medal campaign. On March 6, 2013, in the opening game of the Algarve Cup, Van Hollebeke became only the 29th female to play 100 times for the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. Van Hollebeke's very first appearance with the national team was in 2008 at the very same tournament. During her 100th cap against Iceland, Van Hollebeke scored a goal, making her only the 4th U.S. woman next to

Tiffeny Milbrett Tiffeny Carleen Milbrett (born October 23, 1972) is an American former professional soccer forward who was a longtime member of the United States women's national team. In May 2018 the National Soccer Hall of Fame announced Milbrett will be ens ...

, Shannon MacMillan, and

Abby Wambach Mary Abigail Wambach (born June 2, 1980) is an American retired Association football, soccer player, coach, and member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame. A six-time winner of the U.S. Soccer Athlete of the Year award, Wambach was a regular on ...

to score in their 100th appearance. Rachel Van Hollebeke scored 5 goals in international competition; one each in World Cup final tournament, Olympic qualification, World Cup qualification, the Algarve Cup, and a friendly match.

Personal life

Rachel married Bobby Van Hollebeke on November 17, 2012, at Balboa Park in San Diego. She announced that she would be using her husband's last name professionally from 2014 on. Van Hollebeke's maiden name and tough playing style earned her the nickname "The Buehldozer". Van Hollebeke prepared for medical school while still an active player, with fellow players helping her study for entrance exams. She retired from soccer at the end of the 2015

season and began medical school at the

University of California, San Diego School of Medicine The University of California, San Diego School of Medicine is the graduate medical school of the University of California, San Diego, a public land-grant research university in La Jolla, California. It was the third medical school in the Univer ...

the next day. She graduated as an

M.D. A Doctor of Medicine (abbreviated MD, from the Latin ) is a medical degree, the meaning of which varies between different jurisdictions. In the United States, and some other countries, the ''MD'' denotes a professional degree of physician. This ge ...

in 2019 and now practices medicine in the

San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...

area. In 2020, Van Hollebeke joined the ownership group of NWSL team

. The owners, led by venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, include former teammates from the USWNT as well as some Hollywood stars.

Career statistics

Club

International

:''Scores and results list United States goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Van Hollebeke goal.''

Honors

FC Gold Pride * WPS Championship:

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

Portland Thorns FC *

NWSL Championship The NWSL Championship is the annual championship game of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), the top-flight women's soccer league in the United States. It is the culmination of the NWSL playoffs, which is contested by the teams with the ...

2013 2013 was the first year since 1987 to contain four unique digits (a span of 26 years). 2013 was designated as: *International Year of Water Cooperation *International Year of Quinoa Events January * January 5 – 2013 Craig, Alask ...

United States *

Olympic Gold Medal Olympic or Olympics may refer to Sports Competitions * Olympic Games, international multi-sport event held since 1896 ** Summer Olympic Games ** Winter Olympic Games * Ancient Olympic Games, ancient multi-sport event held in Olympia, Greece bet ...

2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...

2012 2012 was designated as: *International Year of Cooperatives *International Year of Sustainable Energy for All Events January *January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins. * January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...

Individual *NWSL Second XI:

References

;Match reports

External links

*
US Soccer player profile

FC Gold Pride player profile
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Van Hollebeke, Rachel 1985 births Living people American women's soccer players American people of German descent United States women's international soccer players Stanford Cardinal women's soccer players Olympic gold medalists for the United States in soccer Footballers at the 2008 Summer Olympics Footballers at the 2012 Summer Olympics FC Gold Pride players Boston Breakers players 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup players National Women's Soccer League players Portland Thorns FC players FIFA Women's Century Club Medalists at the 2012 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics Iga FC Kunoichi players Nadeshiko League players American expatriate women's soccer players American expatriate sportspeople in Japan Expatriate women's footballers in Japan American expatriate sportspeople in Australia Expatriate women's soccer players in Australia People from Del Mar, California Soccer players from San Diego County, California Women's association football defenders Women's Professional Soccer players University of California, San Diego School of Medicine alumni Physicians from California 21st-century American women physicians 21st-century American physicians Angel City FC owners United States women's youth international soccer players 21st-century American sportswomen