Maycee Bell

Maycee Bell
	Bell with Gotham FC in 2024
Personal information
Full name	Maycee Nicole Bell
Date of birth	September 18, 2000 (age 24)
Place of birth	Wichita, Kansas, U.S.
Height	5 ft 11 in (1.80 m)
Position(s)	Center back, right back
Team information
Current team	North Carolina Courage
Number	27
Youth career
	Sporting Blue Valley
College career
Years	Team
2019–2023	North Carolina Tar Heels
Senior career*
Years	Team
2024	NJ/NY Gotham FC
2024–	North Carolina Courage
International career
2017–2018	United States U-19
2018–2020	United States U-20
	*Club domestic league appearances and goals, correct as of July 6, 2024

Maycee Nicole Bell (born September 18, 2000) is an American professional soccer player who plays as a defender for the North Carolina Courage of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). Born and raised in Wichita, Kansas, she played college soccer for the North Carolina Tar Heels. She was selected by NJ/NY Gotham FC in the first round of the 2024 NWSL Draft. She represented the United States at the youth international level.

Early life

Bell was born in Wichita, Kansas, to former college basketball players Brett and Kristy Bell, and has five younger siblings.^[1] She began playing soccer as a forward but was converted to center back at her first youth national team training camp in 2014.^[2] She said she "realized I loved stopping people from scoring more than I actually loved scoring" and modeled her game partly after national team defender Becky Sauerbrunn.^[2]^[3]

Bell played one year of high school soccer as a freshman at Trinity Academy, scoring 19 goals at forward in 14 games, and was named Kansas's 2015–16 Gatorade Player of the Year, but missed the playoffs while traveling with the youth national team.^[4]^[5] She moved to the Kansas City area to play all year with ECNL club Sporting Blue Valley, which she captained from 2014 to 2017, and she played with the NC Courage Development Academy.^[1]^[2] She attended three high schools in the Kansas City area: Blue Valley Southwest, Blue Valley West, and Insight School of Kansas.^[1]

College career

Bell was a starter for the North Carolina Tar Heels from her first week in 2019, when she was named the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Defensive Player of the Week.^[6] She scored three goals as a freshman, including one in the ACC tournament final and one winning goal during the NCAA tournament, where the team finished runners-up.^[7]^[8] She was named ACC Freshman of the Year and second-team All-ACC.^[9] She was named to the All-ACC first team in 2020 but then missed most of the postseason that spring after injuring an ankle and requiring surgery in March 2021.^[1]^[10] She rehabbed for two months before returning during the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament.^[10]

In her junior year, Bell was named second-team All-American and first-team All-ACC, but injured her left ankle in the second-to-last match of the 2021 regular season.^[11]^[12] She tore her left meniscus in the first game of her senior year and sat out the rest of the 2022 season.^[13] In the summer before her last college season, she was named to the roster of the Kansas City Current II, an amateur Women's Premier Soccer League (WPSL) club.^[14] She co-captained the North Carolina team as a redshirt senior and was named to the All-ACC second team in 2023.^[1]

Club career

Reigning NWSL champions NJ/NY Gotham FC selected Bell with the 14th overall pick in the first round of the 2024 NWSL Draft, their sole pick of the night.^[15]^[16] She signed a three-year guaranteed contract with the team in February 2024.^[17] She made her professional debut as a substitute in the 2024 NWSL Challenge Cup on March 15 and made her first regular-season appearance as a substitute in an away loss to the Washington Spirit on April 20.^[18]^[19] She earned her first start in a 1–0 win over the Houston Dash on May 8.^[20] She scored her first goal, off a Jenna Nighswonger cross, late in stoppage time to defeat the San Diego Wave FC 2–1 on June 19.^[21]

On August 21, 2024, Gotham FC traded Bell to the North Carolina Courage for $80,000 in allocation money and $10,000 in intra-league transfer funds.^[22]

International career

Bell trained with the United States youth national team beginning at the under-16 level in 2014.^[1] She scored for the under-20 team in a friendly in March 2019 and recorded an assist at the 2020 CONCACAF Women's U-20 Championship, which the United States won.^[23]^[24] She received her first call-up with the senior national team in December 2019 but had to miss the camp due to injury.^[25]