The month after forward Courtney Brown and the Washington Spirit lost in the NWSL Championship for the second year in a row, Brown found herself in Machu Picchu.
She had traveled to Peru with her husband, parents and younger brother for an offseason trip. There, she received the news that she would be continuing her professional career in her home state.
Brown was now a Utah Royal.
She was excited to share the news with the rest of her family, including her in-laws, so she video-called them through WhatsApp from Machu Picchu.
“They were super pumped too,” she told reporters at the Utah Royals media day.
Returning to her Utah roots
A West Haven, Utah, native, Brown grew up playing at La Roca Futbol Club, which she said has “been a great foundation for me to build on.”
She later played for Fremont High School and was named to the Deseret News’ All-State Team.
Brown then played five seasons at the University of Utah, where she was a captain for her final three seasons. Brown played in 94 games and scored 14 goals as a Ute.
For Brown, the opportunity to play soccer professionally in her home state is “super special,” she told the Deseret News.
The first iteration of the Utah Royals relocated to Kansas City in December 2020 after Brown’s sophomore season at the University of Utah.
The franchise returned in 2024 — Brown’s final season as a Ute.
The Washington Spirit drafted Brown in the fourth round of the 2024 NWSL draft, making her the first Ute drafted into the NWSL since Lindsey Luke in 2016, according to the Spirit.
“When the Royals kind of got resurrected when I was in college, I thought that would be a super sweet place for me to eventually come back and play at,” Brown said. “I didn’t know at what point in my career that that would be, but I knew that I eventually wanted to get to the Royals. And so I’m super excited about it being now, and I’m happy that I’m here.”
Finding a mini Utah community in D.C.
Brown had spent her entire life living in Utah before she was drafted. But she wasn’t the only Spirit rookie from Utah that season.
Undrafted rookie Heather Stainbrook, who played at Alta High and Utah Valley University, was also part of the Spirit’s 2024 rookie class. Both Brown and Stainbrook played for La Roca.
“Being away from the Utah culture was very different,” Brown said. “That was my first time living outside of Utah and experiencing something that is very much different than what it is here that I’ve grown up with. And I really enjoyed it, and I’m super grateful for the experiences that I had. And it was fun to experience those with Heather because Heather was in the same boat as me.”
She added, “We’d grown up in Utah. I played only in Utah. Going through that with her and then Ashley (Hatch) was just fantastic.”
Together, Brown, Stainbrook and Hatch made up a trio of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the Spirit.
“It was super fun. It was me, Ashley and Heather, and some fans called us the ‘Stormin’ Mormons,’ which was kind of funny. But it was super special,” Brown said.
Brown made her NWSL debut in the Spirit’s 2024 season opener. Her first start would come in the third match of the season against the Royals.
She appeared in 24 games in her rookie season and scored her first goal on June 23, 2024, against Gotham FC.
In 2025, Brown played in 15 games for the Spirit and added another goal, the second of her NWSL career.
Bringing the Spirit way to Utah
Brown comes to Utah from a Spirit team that has established a reputation of success as one of the best teams in the NWSL, making it to the NWSL championship in each of the last two years.
“I think for a team to get to that level, it was super eye-opening for me to see what type of habits and what type of attitude and what type of support it takes to get to that level and to, not just be at that level, but maintain that level throughout the duration of (a) season is also very key because the season is so long,” she said.
She’s now part of a franchise that has finished the last two seasons near the bottom of the table but has the goal of making the playoffs for the first time in its history, as president of soccer operations Jason Kreis told the Deseret News in January.
“I’m excited to see some of those habits that I picked up at Spirit and implement them, and I have been implementing them here with the Royals,” Brown said.
Brown has already noticed similarities between her former Spirit teammates and her new Royals teammates.
“What’s been fun to see is the attitude of the girls at Spirit to win and progress and to be aggressive, like the girls here at the Royals also have that same attitude. It was really awesome to see that correlation, and we do have something really special, I think, brewing here at the Royals,” she said.
The Spirit won the NWSL championship in 2021 but only won three matches in 2022 and seven in 2023.
The team went through what Brown described as a “cultural transformation,” hiring Jonatan Giráldez from FC Barcelona Femení. The club also brought in several new players, including six rookies, one of whom was Brown.
“I think what helped us be successful was the people who were new got up to speed quickly, and they were willing to adapt and to evolve into this new culture that we were setting,” she said. “The standards were kept really high, and so everyone had to rise and meet the standards, whether you were new or whether you were coming back.”
Like with the Spirit’s rebuild, Brown said the Royals staff, led by head coach Jimmy Coenraets, is “doing a really good job of getting everyone up to speed.”
“Royals haven’t had the greatest last two seasons, but they have the momentum shifting in the right direction,” she said. “And that’s what I felt when I was at Spirit my rookie year. I could feel that momentum shifting and I feel it here, too.”