Hope Solo: "Dancing With The Stars" Stint Keeps Spotlight on US Women's Soccer

Win or lose, the fact that Hope Solo is thus far succeeding on Dancing with the Stars is nothing but good news for the US Women's National Team and for women's soccer in America in general.

Solo's dazzled in her dancing debut with Maksim Chmerkovskiy last week. They earned 21 out of a possible 30 points, good enough to finish third out of 12 couples and advance to the next round.

Solo's performance didn't come without an intriguing measure of criticism, though. The judges recommended that Solo be "a bit more feminine" going forward if she's going to win the competition, bringing into question whether Solo's athleticism and muscle-bound physique will help or hinder her performance.

To that effect, Solo has been her own worst critic. “I can’t dance—I’m like a stiff athlete," Solo said. “There’s too much muscle in that arm to be pretty.”

Whether or not Solo's athleticism proves detrimental to her fancy footwork, this latest subplot serves as yet another example of just how big of a boon she has been and continues to be for the sport of soccer in the US.

In previous years, any talk of soccer or the US National team, men's or women's, has tended to die down weeks, if not just days, after the World Cup. The same could have easily happened, and pretty much did, after the American women lost to Japan in the final of the 2011 Women's World Cup in Germany.

But thanks to Solo, out of whom women's soccer made a bona fide star this summer, the sport remains in the nation's collective view, tantalizingly adjacent to the spotlight.

The biggest proof of that came in mid-September, when the US national team came close to selling out an 18,000-seat stadium in Kansas City for a meaningless international friendly with Canada.

Much of the credit belongs to Solo, who's not only helped to draw bigger crowds overall, but has also played a big part in the diversification of those crowds, with men turning out more and more to see the scintillating goalie in person.

Those crowds only figure to grow the longer Solo stays on her feet in DWTS and with the continuing exposure to millions of viewers that the show brings each week.

With that being the case, Solo would do well to sideline her sporting tendencies for now to keep herself, and women's soccer, squarely in the picture.

At least until the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

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