Mia McMurry returns to U.S. Women’s Deaf National Team

Reigning DIFA World Deaf Football Champion and Owen alumnus to face Australia in historic friendly match

Fred McCormick
The Valley Echo
May 30, 2024

Former Owen soccer player Mia McMurry is returning to the U.S. Women’s Deaf National Team roster, June 1, when the program hosts Australia in a friendly match in Colorado. The game will be televised on truTV and Max, marking the televised broadcast in the Deaf WNT’s history. Photo courtesy of Meg Turner

A former Warlassies soccer player and member of the U.S. Women’s Deaf National Team that won gold at the DIFA World Deaf Football Championship in Malaysia last October is returning to action at 2 p.m., Saturday, June 1. 

Mia McMurry, who graduated with the Owen High School class of 2023, will suit up in a friendly against Australia at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, Colorado. The match, which is the first of a historic doubleheader with the U.S. Women’s National Team, will be televised on truTV and Max.

The defender is one of 17 returning players from the 2023 roster that claimed the team’s third World Championship in Kuala Lumpur, with a 3-0 victory over Turkey.

McMurry, a freshman with the Meredith College Avenging Angels, had been a member of the Owen varsity program for four years when she was invited to try out for the U.S. Women’s Deaf National Team last summer. Players who qualify are required to have a hearing loss of 55 decibels in their “better ear.”

The U.S. program has been dominant since it began play in 2005, compiling a record of 37-0-1 and outscoring opponents by a total of 177-15, while claiming four gold medals in the Deaflympics and three World Deaf Football Championships. The team is “excited” to bring back the vast majority of its 2023 roster, head coach Amy Griffin said in a press release announcing their upcoming match.

“This group is inspirational and always continues to strive for more, so there is no better way to begin our preparation for this year’s Deaf Pan Am Games than the platform that comes with a national television broadcast to kick off a historic doubleheader with the U.S. Women’s National Team,” she said. “We’re looking forward to being together again, and also giving more visibility to Deaf Soccer as we write another important chapter in the history of the U.S. Women’s Deaf National Team.”

The team will open the first-of-its-kind doubleheader with a broadcast that features an on-screen American Sign Language presentation. The U.S. Women’s National Team, under new head coach Emma Hayes, will host the Korea Republic in the second contest of the day.

The event marks the first time a U.S. Extended National Team will participate in a doubleheader with a U.S. Soccer senior national team and the first television broadcast of an Extended National Team match.

The match, sponsored by Volkswagen, will also be the first hosted on U.S. soil by the Women’s Deaf National Team.