Last Saturday, Trinity Rodman played all 90 minutes as the Washington Spirit beat Gotham FC 1-0 to clinch a third straight NWSL playoff berth. Twenty-four hours later she was in Los Angeles, walking the runway at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. She admitted she was more nervous for the runway than for a World Cup. Then she did it anyway. That is Rodman in one weekend: the competitor who never sits out, and the young woman who keeps finding new rooms to walk into.
Raised by her mother
Rodman's father is one of the most famous basketball players who ever lived, and she has never been shy about saying that has mostly meant nothing. Born in Newport Beach, California, she was raised by her mother, Michelle Moyer, a former softball player who held the family together after the divorce was finalized in 2012. There were stretches, Rodman has said, when the family lived in a motel and out of a car, Moyer booking a room by the pool so the kids could still swim before school. She calls her mother her best friend and her rock — and her role model. Her brother DJ took after their father's game and played college basketball at Washington State and USC; Rodman took a different road entirely.
Skipping the line
She started playing soccer at four, joined the SoCal Blues club at ten and won four national championships with them. She committed to play college soccer at Washington State, then watched her freshman season vanish to COVID-19 — and decided not to wait. At 18 she went pro, drafted second overall by the Washington Spirit in 2021, the youngest player ever drafted into the NWSL. She won a league championship that same rookie season. Her U.S. Women's National Team debut came in February 2022, and at the Paris Olympics she scored three goals, including an extra-time winner against Japan that sent the U.S. to gold.
More than the last name
She has talked openly about wanting to be known as Trinity Rodman, not as Dennis Rodman's daughter — and this season she has made the case herself. She set career highs with the Spirit in 2026, leading the club in both goals and assists, earning call-ups for the USWNT's October friendlies against Spain. Off the field she wrote a children's book in 2022, "Wake Up and Kick It With Trinity Rodman," about resilience and optimism — the two words that describe her childhood best. She has told the Spirit's own player profile that she wants to be a designer someday, and her runway debut this month suggests she is in no hurry to narrow her options.
Women's Sports Now profiles the people behind the performances — every week.
™