The first time professional goalkeeper Bella Bixby walked into a practice facility designed for a pro-soccer team, it wasn’t actually built for her team.
It was 2019, and renovations to Providence Park caused Bixby’s Portland Thorns to instead practice at a Beaverton facility built for the Timbers.
At the building for professional male athletes, Bixby was surprised to find a state-of-the-art mud room specially designed for players to change shoes directly after coming inside from rainy practices…