Michelle Alozie has talents both on the pitch and in the laboratory, balancing her career as a professional footballer in the US National Women’s Soccer League — playing for the team Houston Dash in Texas — with her work as a cancer research technician at Texas Children’s Hospital, also in Houston.
It is a rare achievement for a professional footballer to also double as a professional Life Scientist, it’s even rarer when such footballer earned the degree while concurrently playing professional football. The demands of being a top athlete and the academic rigours of Life Sciences are separately punishing, now to combine both together as a career is simply astonishing.
Dr Sócrates, the Brazilian World Cup star at the España 82 and Mexico 86 FIFA World Cup tournaments was also a medical doctor, he held a bachelor’s degree in medicine from the Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto, the medical school of the University of São Paulo. After retiring as a player he practised medicine in Ribeirão Preto. Not too many known top athletes have managed to accomplish this.
26-year old Michelle was born in Apple Valley, California, an incorporated town in the Victor Valley of San Bernardino County in the US to Chioma and Godwin Alozie, Nigerian parents from Imo State Nigeria. She attended the Granite Hills High School in Houston before proceeding to bag a Bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biology at the prestigious Yale University.
She is a Genetic Technician at the Texas Children’s Cancer & Hematology Center in Houston, Texas, where she works as a part-time worker to keep her name on the professional register of her career as a life scientist but play full time as footballer for Houston Dash FC.
Alozie started her football career at tender age of 13 at the Legends FC and Granite Hills Cougar both based in Houston.
The American manager of the Nigeria Women national, Randy Waldrum, who had previously managed the Dash was alerted by the then-coach of Houston Dash James Clarkson in 2021 to watch the hugely talented Michelle in training while she on trial at the club in the summer of that year, unable to resist what he saw, Waldrum immediately invited Alozie and her team mate Esther Okoronkwo to the national team’s camp.
A utility player, who plays comfortably as a full back, a midfielder or an arrowhead attacker, Alozie made her senior debut for Nigeria on 10 June 2021 as a 65th-minute substitution in a 0–1 friendly loss to Jamaica and she has since progressed to play 23 full international matches for Nigeria with a goal to her name. As an undergraduate she played football for the Yale Bulldogs and started out as very prolific forward with an astonishing return of 19 goals in 49 matches before she suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament that ended her senior season, she later transferred as a graduate to the University of Tennessee to continue playing for the Tennessee Volunteers.
Alozie who oddly plays with 2 different colored boots for both club and country, when asked why she wears different colored boots, She revealed to NFF TV that she got the inspiration from Balotelli.
She said: “I got my inspiration from Mario Balotelli, he is my favorite player. “I watched him a lot when I was growing up; he did in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil”.
Michelle Alozie was an easy player to spot at the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 with the Nigerian defender regularly sporting two different coloured boots. Against England in the Round of 16, the contrast was even harder to miss as she donned one black and one white boot.
When she was quizzed about her career as a Molecular Biologist she said:
“It’s not necessarily a field that I thought I was going to find myself in but it is so amazing to be able to have an impact on children’s lives,” Alozie told FIFA in July.
“Childhood cancer isn’t something that’s researched that much. Being able to be a part of that and be a part of that research is just such a blessing.
“I have a passion for helping people. Thankfully biology was something that I was really good at in school and so medicine just seemed like the correct option there. Again, it’s just amazing to meet these young kids that I’m helping find a cure for their cancer. It means everything to me.”
“I think I’ve been pursuing both athletics and academics throughout my entire life. Day to day, I go to training in the morning and head to the labs in the afternoon right after. They’re two really big passions of mine, and I wouldn’t want to choose between them.
I think it’s beautiful that I’m able to live these two lives in conjunction with each other. And they really overlap a lot with the teamwork and the collaborations that are needed. Especially with soccer, it’s taught me how to be a team player and when to say that you need help. In science, it’s definitely a team over an individual, which is what I love about research. It allows for this innovation and growth that you didn’t necessarily know you’re going to have when you’re doing the research”, she also said.
The inspirational story of Michelle Alozie is a brilliant example of how goals can be achieved with hard work and commitment, the full gaze of the sporting world is on her as her star continues to rise.
References:
- Why Nigeria defender is wearing different coloured boots at the Women’s World Cup. A bold fashion choice inspired by a player who never fails to turn heads. By Joshua Thomas 7th Aug 2023,
- Dr Sócrates, an intellectual and professional footballer. By Bellos Alex, June 2010
- From the lab to the World Cup: Nature 621, 20 (2023) By Lily Tozer, 29 August 2023
- “In the lab: Houston Dash’s Michelle Alozie has ‘other’ career at Texas Children’s Hospital”. by Adam Winkler 23 September 2022
- “From club trialist to the World Cup: Michelle Alozie’s ‘Hail Mary’ is about to pay off”. By Morgan, Bekki 13 June 2023
