Megan has a clear memory of the day her parents sat her and Rachael down at the kitchen table and told them, “Your brother got arrested for bringing meth to school.” Brian was fifteen; they were ten. Brian has battled drug addiction since then – first meth, then pills, then heroin and has been in and out of prison his entire adult life.
“There’s no other heartbreak that I’ve ever been through like that,” says Rapinoe. “Going through that basically from the age of 10 was really hard. For a long time you blame yourself, you think, ‘What can I do,’ and you’re mad at him, but his addiction is not really about you. He’s not doing the things that he’s doing in order to hurt us – that’s just a byproduct. It took me a long time to wrap my head around that.”
Brian reflects, “Drugs make you selfish. I thought, ‘It’s my life. I didn’t steal, didn’t mess with anyone, so what are you guys tripping on?’ But that’s not how it works. I put them through long, long nights. With no regard to any of them.”
“Watching what Brian went through scared the crap out of Rachel and me and brought us together,” says Rapinoe. For both Rachael and Megan, soccer was a release, “That was how we got away from it.” They both excelled on the field and stayed out of trouble and away from the drugs that are common in rural California.
The twins witnessed their parents’ constant worry and their intense efforts to save their son: rehab programs, military school, juvenile detention center. Both parents worked, their father doing construction during the day, their mother waitressing at night. “And while they’re dealing with our brother, they’re taking us to soccer all the time,” remembers Rapinoe. “Spending all their money on his rehab and our soccer. It’s kind of incredible what they were able to do for us.”
“Any time I have a sense of accomplishment, it totally feels likes it’s a family thing, like we all did it.” Both twins went to the University of Portland on soccer scholarships and won the 2005 national championship. After a knee injury, Rachael’s playing career ended, but she’s stayed in the game, running camps for kids (Rapinoe Soccer Camps) and is a Darfur United Coach Ambassador, working in Chad to help create a soccer academy within Darfur’s refugee camp.
Megan Rapinoe (right) with her twin sister Rachel, who also played with the U.S. Youth National Teams before a knee injury ended her playing career.
Brian has spent ten of his thirty-four years in prison. He has eight months to serve on his current sentence. “I can’t even believe I’ve done all this time,” says Brian. “It blows my mind that I keep doing drugs and continue to sit here. I’m not a bad person; I just make really bad decisions. I’m a drug addict.”
Brian had a son named Austin during one time he was out of prison. “I haven’t been there for him,” he says. “I was there from when he was born until he was three but then I was gone.” His parents raised Austin, who idolizes Megan and Rachael in the same way they idolized Brian. “They’re his role models,” says Brian. “And I’m really glad he’s going down the path they took, not mine.”
Megan and Brian have stayed close, “I think we’ve even gotten closer,” says Brian. They write each other letters.“She’s the only one who can write me letters that make me cry,” says Brian. “She tells me what’s going on, gives me credit for way more than I deserve, tells me she loves me no matter what. I showed one letter to my homeboy and he was like, ‘Damn.’”
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In prison, Brian says, “Women’s soccer is huge. In every place I’ve served time, we love it.” And while he’ll occasionally get a guard who won’t turn on the game, he’s never missed an Olympic or World Cup game. “All my homeboys – black, white, Hispanic, everybody – we cheer loud.”
Currently, Brian, a non-violent offender, is serving the remainder of his sentence in a county jail. Because he was active in prison culture in his early prison days, and has an influence over other inmates, he’s kept separate from the general population. He’s in Level 5 security and has his own cell. The TV is out in the hall, about fifty yards away. “I’ve got ingenuity,” says Brian. He has stacked 60 books, as tight and as compact as possible, tied together with strips of torn sheet. He sits on the book column and watches the game through the window in his door. All sixteen inmates on his block will be watching; so will the guards. “We get fired up, we’re loud, we’re hitting doors,” says Brian.
