In the ever-growing trend of exceptional players being born on American soil, Sam Coffey stands out. Mind you, she isn’t just “another homegrown talent”; it’s her unique game that makes the star midfielder a standout. Playing at the highest level for the USWNT and domestically for the Portland Thorns, Coffey always remains in the spotlight.

Yet today, the focus shifts towards her personal life, which not many are aware of. Let’s meet Sam Coffey’s family, who covers the journalistic world of sports with their pens while she plays the beautiful game to carve greatness with her feet.

Introducing Sam Coffey’s journalism-loving family!

Samantha Coffey was born to father Wayne Coffey and mother Denise Willi on December 31, 1998. New York City was the place where it all began for little Sam. One can say that the 25-year-old was born into a family of journalists. Father Wayne, for those who still didn’t recognize him, was a former sports reporter. He also authored a New York Times bestseller, “The Boys of Winter.” Meanwhile, Denise worked as a writer for the 100-year-old publishing company Scholastic.

The journalistic values were further instilled in Sam’s older siblings. Sam’s brother, Sean Coffey, works as a news anchor for WBRE, Eyewitness News, while her sister, Alex Coffey, is a feature writer who covers the Oakland Athletics for The Athletic. No wonder Coffey has had a great influence on her since childhood, as writing is deeply rooted in the player’s “family blood.”

But fate wanted Sam to first savor the glory of soccer. Aside from impeccable writing skills, the midfielder also showed early signs of becoming a professional soccer star. “For as long as I’ve known her, Sam has been an elite athlete, a phenomenon that once made little sense to me,” wrote her older sister Alex, who was over the moon to see her little sister get selected by the Thorns as the 12th overall pick in the NWSL draft in 2021.

Though Sam turned out to be a professional soccer player, writing is something that awaits the Thorns star, as she hopes to carry forward her family’s tradition after hanging up her boots. This also explains why Sam majored in print journalism and minored in sociology while attending Penn State University and majored in English at Boston College.

While Sam chose to take the professional path in soccer, it may interest you to know she started building her journalist CV from a very young age—and what better way there is than by taking the interview of one of the most iconic women’s players!

A young Sam Coffey once interviewed Brazil’s greatest, Marta!

As successful journalists, Wayne and Denise instilled writing values in their children. Luckily, Scholastic’s initiative called ‘Kid Reporter’ saw Alex and Sean enroll as young journalists to cover the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy. Sam, too, wanted to go but was too young for her age. Till then, she had no choice but to act. “I was just doodling pictures and stuff and making incoherent statements, but that is definitely an early reporting memory that I have,” Coffey said.

A few years later, when Sam was finally eligible to report for Scholastic, she got a chance to cover a Women’s Premier Soccer League game. Thanks to her mother’s Portuguese translational skills, Coffey was able to interview Brazilian soccer icon Marta. “That was the first real writing memory that I have of a storytelling adventure that I was able to do,” Coffey said. This explains Sam’s choice of career, as she considered Marta “the best female player of all time.”

While the journalistic world awaits Sam Coffey, right now she has many years to further cement her name in the soccer world.