Amy Griffin is used to center stage after a decorated career playing soccer in college and for the US Women’s National Soccer Team. The spotlight is now brighter than ever because of her efforts to make a difference in other people’s lives.

Griffin started a list of soccer players diagnosed with cancer once she was a coach after she repeatedly heard of players, particularly goalkeepers, getting the disease. Her list keeping brought the potential dangers of crumb rubber in turf to the forefront of what is now a major national discussion, though a direct correlation has yet to be proven. More recently, she has started her role as the head coach of the U.S. National Deaf Women’s Soccer Team.

Griffin went to Decatur High School. At the time they didn’t have a high school girls soccer team. Instead she played club soccer for a team in Edgewood.

“Amy was great,” said Greg Flynn her former softball coach and teacher at Decatur High School. “She was always very enthusiastic, a good leader and very competitive.”

After playing collegiately at Central Florida and earning the 1987 Goalkeeper of the Year, Griffin continued playing soccer for the U.S. Women’s National Team from 1987-1991. As a member of the 1991 US Women’s National Team she won a World Cup.

Griffin began her career at the University of Washington as an assistant coach in 1996 and has been there ever since. She became the women’s associate head coach at Washington in 2005.

“I love what I’m doing here and I could spend 24 hours thinking of great things to do here and still be able to come up with more,” Griffin said.

Even with her illustrious career, her impact on soccer goes beyond playing or coaching.

There were two goalkeepers whom Griffin knew while coaching that went on to play soccer at a high level and were part of Olympic Development Programs at a young age. One went to the University of California, Berkeley, and the other went to the University of Miami. Griffin stayed in touch and both goalkeepers were diagnosed with lymphoma at the same time. One of those goalkeepers speculated that it could be the black dots that are used on turf fields because they smelled of burning rubber.

Later on, as Griffin made visits with her University of Washington teams to the Seattle Children’s Hospital to visit young soccer players who were sick, three out of the four soccer players who were sick with cancer were goalkeepers.

At this point, Griffin became alarmed at the high percentage of goalkeepers becoming sick and began keeping a list of athletes who had gotten cancer. Originally her list was of athletes she had known or met. Then, people began to hear about the list and would contact her.

Her list now sits at 202 athletes. Of those, 158 played soccer and 101 of those soccer players had been goalkeepers.

Griffin has made an impact. KOMO 4 wrote a story about this as well as NBC.

“There are a lot of people who think Amy is saving lives. She has been exceptional and noble about getting answers,” said Gaard Swanson, who reported the story for KOMO 4. “She has stuck her neck out there.”

Griffin doesn’t know if crumb rubber is the cause, and science hasn’t proven that’s the case, but Congress is investigating.

Currently, Griffin is the head coach of the U.S. National Deaf Women’s Soccer Team. They held their first practices together a few weeks ago in Chula Vista, California.

“There were 19 players at camp. All 19 have very different kinds of communication,” she said.

To make things more difficult, players are not allowed to wear hearing aids during games.

“The best thing is how much they love being out there,” she said.

Griffin said team members—who come from all over the country—pay their own way to play on the team. That includes airfare, hotel and other expenses. The team fundraises as much as they can.

“There is not one cent given to them by any federation, deaf association or anything” she said.

“I’m super thankful for the opportunity. I think it is going to make me a better coach,” Griffin said. “I really think I’ll get more out of it than the players I’m coaching. It is a really fun challenge with a group of people that are very appreciative that they all get to be together.”

Follow the team @USDeaf_WNT.

Ross Armstrong is a University of Washington student in the News Lab program.

Coaches and players for the US National Deaf Women’s Soccer Team. Contributed photo