Glenbard East graduate Faith Davies, a soccer goalkeeper and graduate student at the University of the Incarnate Word, is a community service veteran recognized by the Uplifting Athletes organization as a “Rare Disease Champion.”
Courtesy of Colwell-Uplifting Athletes
This is about triumph over adversity.
Glenbard East 2018 graduate Faith Davies was, and is, a great soccer player. She played on the Rams’ Class 3A third-place team as a sophomore. A three-year starter, she was an Illinois High School Soccer Coaches Association all-sectional pick as a senior goalkeeper.
A National Honor Society student, she earned bushels of honors for actions on and off the pitch, even awarded a Jeep Compass after a prep tournament for her support of Buddy’s Helpers, support she continues to this day.
Starting in high school, however, twice within two years she tore her right medial collateral ligament, with other knee injuries. Then at Eastern Illinois University, hip surgery.
Earning her bachelor’s degree at Eastern in organizational development and leadership in 2023, she followed her coach, Jake Plant, to the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio to go to graduate school and play soccer — and promptly reinjured her hip.
This Aug. 22, in goal against Prairie View A&M University, Davies recorded a 3-0 shutout in her first college game since 2021. Now she’s back in rehab after her hip popped out in practice. Hoping to return soon, she’ll earn her master’s degree in December.
Even in 2021 when Davies started all 17 games in goal for Eastern Illinois, recording a 1.76 goals-against average with 4 shutouts, a concussion in her last game forced her to miss class time.
But when a door closes, another opens. Through the injuries, Davies doubled down on the charity work she began at 5, when she helped her mother, Lucretia, and grandmother, Renee, at a Wheaton family shelter service.
“I’ve always been involved in community service, but when I got that first injury it felt like I had lost everything with soccer, and I kind of lost myself with it, too,” she said over the phone from San Antonio.
“But I think through that setback and all the other ones I’ve had with injury, I was able to fall in love with the power of soccer. I started falling in love with soccer as a whole, the platform it gave me, the connection.
“I feel like through those setbacks I discovered new ways to contribute and find fulfillment by uplifting others, and really showing resilience, adaptability and perseverance,” Davies said.
Most recently Davies was named a “Rare Disease Champion” by Uplifting Athletes, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit founded in 2007 by a Penn State football player. Its goals include funding disease research, building leaders and creating opportunities for people facing a rare diagnosis through the Uplifting Experiences program, said UA President Brett Brackett.
Montini graduate Joe Spivak is a former UA Rare Disease Champion, named in 2020 as a Northwestern University football player.
The Uplifting Athletes Chapter Leader of Incarnate Word, Davies first started working in the program at Eastern Illinois, where Panthers teammate Kenzie Balcerak had formed a chapter.
Since introducing Uplifting Athletes to her team at Incarnate Word, Davies has led several events with Cardinals athletic programs, including a “Lift for Life” in March with the men’s soccer team that raised nearly $4,000. She hopes to complete a couple more events before turning over leadership to a returning teammate.
Twice Davies has spoken at Lincoln Financial Field, home of the Philadelphia Eagles, during Uplifting Athletes’ “Young Investigator Draft,” a conference that culminates in the selection of medical researchers to whom UA donates funds.
Has Davies had the soccer career she expected?
“No, not at all,” she said.
Then she recalls what her coach says. Plant asks his players, how do they want to be remembered? Here, Davies has few peers.
“I think about that a lot,” she said. “I want to be remembered for helping others and being a good teammate, regardless of the hand that I’ve been dealt,” she said.
“I’ve always had a passion for helping others, but once I got hurt I found a new way to love soccer.”
Pictured with Montini graduate and Uplifting Athletes “Young Investigator Draft” emcee Joe Spivak, right, Incarnate Word soccer player Faith Davies, a Glenbard East graduate, joins Weill Cornell Medicine’s Dr. Noah Guiberson, one of 10 recipients of $20,000 grants from Uplifting Athletes. The event was held Feb. 3 at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.
Courtesy of Colwell-Uplifting Athletes