When Texas senior midfielder Lexi Missimo was four years old, she sat on the sidelines of a Solar Soccer Club game in a UNC-Chapel Hill cheerleader uniform to watch her seven-year-old sister, Gabriella, play soccer.
Captivated by the competition, Missimo knew she wanted to be just like her older sister. But Missimo didn’t just catch up to her sister, she surpassed her.
“She could dribble through anybody … and I can’t even do that,” Gabriella Missimo told Mint Farm Films. “That was when we (thought), ‘Okay, she has a real God-given talent.’”
Missimo had three main coaches throughout her life: her father, Derek, technical director Adrian Solca of Solar, and Texas head coach Angela Kelly.
Similar to four-year-old Missimo, Derek and Kelly also wore Carolina blue.
Missimo’s father, who still leads UNC in career goals, first met Kelly while at Carolina. The two would cross paths occasionally between practices, and a friendship formed.
Years later, Derek rekindled his friendship with Kelly, and it was during this time that Lexi met coach Kelly.
Missimo committed to Texas in seventh grade to play for Kelly, with a goal of winning Texas’ first national championship. Her goal was to make history, not just be another name in a North Carolina championship book that already featured 21 titles.
“(She is) just such an exceptional talent and we are so incredibly fortunate she’s at the University of Texas,” Kelly said.
Kelly herself was quite the player, winning four national championships and only losing one game in her entire collegiate career at UNC. The coach would later attend Missimo’s games, and the bond between coach and player developed into a close relationship. For Missimo, it has always been about more than just coaching — Kelly became family.
“I have known (her) since I was seven years old,” Missimo said. “I consider her not only my coach but family to me. (In the game) my job as a 10 is to get assists and goals, and I just did my job. I couldn’t have done it without my team.”
Despite Lexi’s impressive list of accomplishments — she is the NCAA Division I active leader in assists per match with 0.71, points per match of 2.05, assists with 60, goals with 56, and points of 172 — it’s the person she has become that means the most to her father. Derek credits Kelly not only for shaping the Texas soccer team on the field but also for guiding the players in life.
“Lex’s competitive drive and commitment to excel, the endless hours of training, the discipline to prioritize her training to be the best version of herself all the time is what sets her (apart),” Derek said. “But it is Lex’s humility and the fact that she is highly respected by her teammates that makes me most proud as her dad and former club coach.”
When Derek speaks with Lexi’s teammates, he asks only one question: How is she as a teammate? The soccer part, he said, is her business.
“Athletics define character,” he continued. “(Athletics) provides moments on how an individual responds to success and adversity. Trust me, Lex is humble and gracious in (both) victory and defeat.”
