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MLS NEXT Pro Chattanooga FC

AAPI Month Community Spotlight: Ava VanDoren

May 31, 2024 - MLS NEXT Pro (MLS NEXT Pro)
Chattanooga FC News Release


Chattanooga Football Club is proud to recognize Chattanooga FC Women defender Ava VanDoren.

Chattanooga FC Women's Ava VanDoren may have been raised in Tampa, Florida, but her family's roots go much further than the United States. The 22-year-old's mother and grandmother were born in Japan and passed their heritage onto VanDoren.

"It's just really different over there," said VanDoren. "I think that also helped instill different values in me, because I have the American and the Japanese side kind of blended."

VanDoren's grandparents, an American man and Japanese woman, met in Japan and had her mother in Tokyo. Shortly after her mother's birth, they moved to New York in the 1970s.

VanDoren was born in upstate New York with her family, but a job offer moved her mother and father to Tampa when she was a toddler. Her grandparents refused to be away from her and her siblings, so they moved down with them and helped raise her. After the move, her father introduced her to soccer.

"I think I started when I was five or six, then it just kind of progressed from there. My grandparents got involved, my mom got involved, my aunt and uncle got involved. My dad introduced me and then everybody kind of jumped on that wagon."

Her parents both worked long hours, so it was VanDoren's grandparents who took her to a lot of her club soccer games.

"My grandpa, I always remember his advice was just like, 'Work hard and do your best,' was always what he told me whenever he dropped me off. On repeat, 'Work hard, do your best.' And my grandma, too, always would come to the soccer games. I'd see her cheering and stuff, but it was more so both of them came together to just instill in me like, work hard. You work hard for what you want."

These values and her culture took her further than the field. Outside of soccer, VanDoren spent lots of time with her family, and notes the food as her favorite part of her heritage.

"I think that food is kind of like a staple for us. It's just something that brings us together. So even now, I'll have my teammates over and I'll cook for them. It's kind of like a little chain reaction. I don't know why that's so big in Japanese culture, but hospitality and cooking for people is huge."

From Tampa, to Dalton State and now Chattanooga, Ava VanDoren carries her Asian-American heritage everywhere she goes. She credits both her American and her Japanese family for making her who she is today.

"I've gotten a bunch of different perspectives, just having my dad's family, my mom's family, the two coming together. I feel like it instilled different values in me. The way I go about problem solving something is like, 'Oh, I got to do this now. I've got to fix it now. I've got to fix this and move forward.' Even with what I eat on a daily basis; it's just all incorporated and just made me the person I am."

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