If there’s hallowed ground in American women’s soccer, it’s Fetzer Field. The Depression-era complex in Chapel Hill hosted lacrosse, men’s soccer and track and field for decades, but it became home to women’s soccer in 1979. The North Carolina Tar Heels program has won 22 national championships since, six of them at Fetzer. Legends of the women’s game too numerous to name lent Fetzer its legacy.

Today, Fetzer Field is a dirt pit, razed to make way for a modern soccer/lacrosse stadium in the heart of UNC’s campus –new staff facilities, new seating, new video board, the works. There’ll be a Hall of Honor celebrating past Tar Heel greats. Meanwhile, track and field is being moved a few miles away to its own new home. It seems even a place as venerable and reliable as Fetzer can lose its luster and become prime for an upgrade to something more trendy, something less versatile, something different.

Fetzer Field was demolished last year. Its reclamation creeps along.

“I get updates on the progress being made,” says Crystal Dunn, “and sometimes I wonder, is there really progress being made? I just think it looks like it still has some ways to go.”

The last time a Tar Heels team claimed a College Cup was 2012, when Dunn was the national player of the year. She’s the first soccer player ever named both ACC Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year. Her talent was prodigious, a quicksilver combination packed into a 5-foot package.

Acclaim has come since college, but there’s a restlessness to Dunn that mirrors the facets of her game: brilliant, darting, unpredictable, confounding. She’s one of the most gifted soccer players in the world, yet something remains amiss. Like the site of her college soccer ground, is there really progress being made? Does she still have some ways to go?

Square One

Dunn has returned to Chapel Hill a few times: a visit with UNC coach Anson Dorrance here, a golf tournament there. But she hasn’t seen Polk Place, the main quad in the core of UNC’s campus, in over four years. It’s finally a warm, spring day, and the quad is teaming with college kids strewn across the rectangular lawn.

“I’m the same height still as everybody, so I feel like I fit in,” Dunn observes. “All I need is a backpack and some books and I feel back to square one again.”

Dunn’s original square one is Rockville Centre, a village on Long Island, New York. Her accent emerges once she talks long enough, particularly around words like “ball” and “Paul.”

Dunn started in youth soccer leagues at age five, and her playmates remained largely consistent through her years at South Side, the only high school in Rockville Centre. Her teams won three New York state titles; the only year they didn’t was the year she was away at the 2008 U-17 World Cup. She matriculated at UNC in 2010, enjoying four decorated years. She remembers her happiest time playing soccer as 2012, the year UNC won the national championship and her U.S. team won the U-20 FIFA World Cup.

Dunn’s time with Dorrance remains her favorite, most formative coaching relationship, for reasons that sound rather on the nose. “Don’t get me wrong: Anson was always telling people, ‘Your touch is crap. That’s crap.’ But with Anson, you were never uncertain about why you weren’t playing. Uncertainty is the one thing that kills our minds,” she said.

In early 2013, Dunn received her first senior national team call-up. That’s also when, she says, “things got hectic.”

“I started scratching my hair and pulling it out,” Dunn says, only half-jokingly. “That’s when I knew soccer just went from, I wouldn’t say a hobby, to, oh my goodness. I’m called up and asked to take my game to another level. That comes with stress.”

Dunn left UNC to pursue professional soccer in 2014 as the first pick in the NWSL college draft by the Washington Spirit. She played mainly midfield for a Spirit squad that made the 2014 league playoffs. Then, a knee injury took Dunn out of World Cup qualifying later that year. She returned to training with the national team in early 2015. That’s when Dunn says soccer stopped being fun, even before she learned she wouldn’t get a spot on the U.S. World Cup roster.

“The moments leading into the 2015 World Cup, when I didn’t know if I was going to make it, those were the moments where I was like, I don’t enjoy this game at all,” Dunn recalls. “I’m so focused on making this team, and [I felt like] if I don’t make this team then life is over, almost in a sense.”

Not making the World Cup roster was the first notable setback in Dunn’s meteoric rise, the sort that can break a player. Dunn did the only thing she could: throw herself back into the Spirit.

“I found the joy when I got back into my club environment,” Dunn says. “I played under Mark Parsons at that point, and I remember him being in my corner, saying, ‘Chris, I’m gutted for you, but we have a season to prepare for, and now your new reality is you’re going to be a part of our year. We didn’t expect to have you, but now we have you full time.”

Dunn led the NWSL with 15 goals in 2015, attempting at least double the number of shot attempts that season of any Spirit teammate. She won the league MVP and the Spirit again made the playoffs. Following a return to the U.S. national team setup – and back at her more familiar forward position – Dunn netted 14 goals and eight assists over 25 games for the USWNT in 2016, including a goal at the Rio Olympics.

“For a very long time on the national team, a lot of us probably tend to be like, 'oh my gosh, I don’t do the things that she does,'” Dunn says. “After 2015, I was like, 'I am Crystal Dunn. I know what I’m good at. I know what I need to work on. I know what I can bring to a game. I know when I play for someone who believes in me. I know that sparks me.'”

Parsons left the Spirit after the 2015 season, and Jim Gabarra became Washington’s manager. The Spirit advanced to the 2016 NWSL championship, but between reports of backstage tumult between players and management and an offseason player purge, Dunn decided to make a change.

“I, um, I wasn’t that happy at the Spirit,” Dunn admits. “I was there for three years. It was the first club I ever played for. I just felt there was a change in a lot of things. The team was very different when I was on the team. The three years I was there, I loved it to death. My teammates who were there, they were great. There was a lot of chemistry, and I kind of blinked and things were just different.

“That’s why, at the end of the 2016 season, I was kind of like, I want to experience a new coach, play for someone who is going to light that fuse under my butt, who will believe in me and give me that affirmation. And that’s what I did. I rolled with it.”

An American in London

The paradoxes emerge when Dunn talks about why she left for Chelsea last year. She wanted to escape the limelight, but she missed playing in front of her fans. She loved her time overseas, but she would often cry from homesickness. Playing for Chelsea helped her career, and it coincided with another ebb in her national team status.

“I wanted to kind of get away and – I know this sounds crazy – almost fall off the face of the map for a second, because there’s so much pressure being in the NWSL,” Dunn says. “The spotlight’s always on you, especially as a national team player. For me, I want something where I’m just focusing on myself and to be in a very different environment and not really worry about what’s going on all the time in the limelight.”

She wanted to immerse herself in what she labels “the day-to-day stuff.”

“I wasn’t pinned up against another player when I was at Chelsea,” Dunn says. “I was just another player in the league trying to perform and that’s it. In the NWSL, if a national team player is scoring 10 goals, the other forwards are going to be feeling like, 'oh shoot, I gotta score a lot of goals in the league, too.' I just felt like another player at Chelsea.”

That doesn’t mean there weren’t moments of regret. Dunn rues not taking more time to soak up London, instead keeping her singular focus on football. “I cried a lot while I was at Chelsea. I was sad … Yes, I did get homesick. I got a fear of missing out, which is FOMO. But I knew what I was getting myself into.”

English football introduced Dunn to a style of play that’s more technical and tactical than the high-press American game. It expanded her game and, moreover, allowed her to defy the stereotype assigned to women players of color as being reliant on speed and athleticism.

“I do think people see me as, oh, she’s a black soccer player, she must be fast,” Dunn says. “Of course people are going to think I’m fast. Great, I am fast. And I love the fact that I’m fast, because this sport requires a lot of athleticism. But, I don’t want to just be fast. I want to be skillful. I want to be able to create a lot of goal-scoring opportunities ... That I can do more than what people see me as.”

On the heels of her standout 2016, Dunn scored four goals in two friendlies against Russia in April 2017. After her Chelsea season ended in June, Dunn took a month’s vacation. During the Tournament of Nations in late July, Dunn found herself outside the regular U.S. starting XI, playing a total of 85 minutes over three matches.

“I had that time off, and unfortunately I got out of playing form,” Dunn recalls. “Everybody here was playing NWSL 90 minutes and getting fit. Then Tournament of Nations comes, and my playing time is cut, in a sense, because I felt like I wasn’t playing 90 minutes every week … Then I go to back England, I come back, have a new [national team] camp, and I’m not starting. I’m playing the last 15 minutes of a game, and everyone knows you can only do so much in 15 minutes of a game.”

Dunn missed the November USWNT camp because she wasn’t released by Chelsea, which was playing in the Champions League. As 2018 arrived, and with Chelsea mid-season, Dunn decided to return to the NWSL in advance of World Cup Qualifying later this year. One question was whether she’d come back at the start of the NWSL season or wait until Chelsea’s season ends in June. The answer rested with what team she’d play for. In early January, Washington traded her to the North Carolina Courage.

“I had a list of teams that I wanted to go to; North Carolina was obviously on it, but I didn’t know I would go to North Carolina,” Dunn says. “I found out two days before the draft; it happened so fast.”

Dunn says her top priority in making her team wish list wasn’t attendance, stadium or location. “All the teams that I had on my list I picked based on the feedback I got about their coaches. It had nothing to do with their players, for the most part. Number one was do I like this manager, would I buy into what this manager is going to do for the team? If not, then they probably weren’t on my list.”

All of which begs a question to be answered: would Dunn have returned for the start of the NWSL season if Washington hadn’t traded her rights? “I … think I would have stayed in England,” she says.

How about in June, after the end of Chelsea’s season?

“I would have come back and probably started the whole trading process,” Dunn says, an oblique reference to fellow national teamer Christen Press’s current row with the Houston Dash.

“I think it’s important for us to be in an environment where we want to be,” Dunn explains. “It’s unfortunate, because national team players are already held out as we’re divas, we’re this and that. But I tell anyone, whether you’re on the national team or not, you should never feel like you should be somewhere just because someone is telling you should be there.

“In Europe, they have things the correct way. You want to go to a club but your contact is with another club, they have to buy you out. It’s a true professional trade off, where for us, people look at us sideways because we want to get traded. Well, if someone’s unhappy, why should someone have to be there? Because we want to grow the game, and I get that. I want to help and participate in our role as national team players to be here and support this league. But at the end of the day, we’re human beings. Our happiness matters, and it’s not just the soccer.”

The OK button

When I first spot Crystal Dunn, she’s hunched over a parking meter on Franklin Street, the main thoroughfare in Chapel Hill. It’s one of those credit card meters, and Dunn can’t seem to make it work. We spend a few minutes alternating between swiping her card and punching random keys to add time to the meter, until we finally spy our error on the faded digital screen: we hadn’t pressed the OK button.

“Ah, if all else fails, always press the OK button,” Dunn says.

When it comes to the unending question of what position will, and should, Dunn play, her reply is usually some form of the OK button. Forward, fullback, midfielder, wherever … as long as she’s on the field, helping the team win. It’s a truthful response, particularly from a national team player who has felt the sting of rejection and knows roster spots aren’t etched in stone.

A natural forward, Dunn contends “the whole ‘Crystal Dunn can play outside back’ situation” started when she was on the 2012 U.S. U-20 World Cup team. She’s spent the ensuing five years sliding around the pitch. She played both striker and fullback for Chelsea, then the issue was revived on the national team level during last month’s SheBelieves Cup, when she started the match against England at left back.

“I feel like after that England game, people are like, can Crystal Dunn be an outside back now?” Dunn says. “In my head, the first thing I’m thinking is if that gets me being on the World Cup roster, I obviously have to be happy for that, because I want to be there regardless. I definitely don’t want to go through that same feeling I felt in 2015.”

Dunn views her versatility as a “backhanded compliment,” one she’s willing to accept for club and country. That being said, “I can only be on the pitch where I want to be if my coach allows me to be on the pitch where I want to be.”

“To be honest, do I want to be that player bounced around? No,” Dunn declares. “I just feel like I have not played that one position consistently to even prove whether I can stay in that role for a full season. The frustration I have is a lot of players get the opportunities of, even if you play well two games in a row but you don’t play well that third or even fourth game, [they’re] still given the chance to be in that role. Whereas for me, I might play well a few times in row, maybe not that third or even fourth, and then I feel like I have to move on to another position. That’s just the way I feel like my career has gone.”

“I would love to play in one position for one year,” Dunn continues. “And I would love to have a coach who invests in my role. If I’m going to play the 9 and there are certain things I’m not doing great as a 9, don’t just say you’re not doing great as a 9 and move me, because everybody gets that opportunity to not do so well and get through those growing pains.

“That’s the only way I’m going to get better at a position, is if I’m there for more than four games.”

Carolina in her mind

Paul Riley didn’t coach Dunn when once she played for his Albertson Fury youth soccer club in New York, but his wife did. Today, Riley, as manager of the North Carolina Courage, is the latest person tasked with unleashing Dunn’s untapped potential, of overseeing the reclamation of Crystal Dunn.

Riley believes Dunn’s stateside return is the right move at the right time for her career. She’s played midfield for the Courage in the absence of an injured Sam Mewis. Dunn’s ultimate destination is likely at forward. But no matter her listed position, she’s the talisman.

“She’s hungry as hell,” Riley says. “She wants to get her spot back in the [USWNT] lineup. There couldn’t be a better attacker than Crystal Dunn that we have … She should be playing forward for the national team.”

“I didn’t know what I was getting myself into with Paul,” Dunn admits. “He makes me feel very much like I’m back in the Carolina days. He has the same mentality as an Anson Dorrance, where he values effort and mentality … This whole [Courage] team is built on support and not putting one person above the team. Those are the teams I enjoy playing for, when I feel like I’m getting yelled at as a national team player and someone who might not be a national team player is being held to the same standard as me. That is the greatest feeling ever. Coaches don’t understand, and may not even notice, that the way they treat one player versus another can completely divide a team.”

Realizing we haven’t eaten lunch, Dunn suggests grabbing a quick bite at a coffee shop on Franklin Street now co-owned by Heather O’Reilly, a fellow Tar Heel and American expatriate in London last year when O’Reilly was playing for Arsenal. “All my friends are older than me. I always connected with people who are three or four years older than myself,” she explains.

Crystal Dunn is only 25 years old, but she fancies herself an “old soul,” as likely to groove to Aretha Franklin as Beyoncé. Like Aretha, maybe that’s all Dunn is askin’ for: a little respect.

“I want to be a really impactful player this season,” Dunn says. “There was a lot of hype about me coming back into the league, and I’m happy about that. I feel like I matter. But ultimately, it’s just me playing soccer again.”