For Brittany Wilson Isenhour, soccer has been a passion from the beginning.
She started playing the sport at age 3 and grew up with a Hope Solo poster in her bedroom. The Colorado native was even the ball girl for the University of Denver women’s soccer team as a kid.
But when she saw the U.S women’s national team play in person in Colorado when she was young, Isenhour started to think that soccer wasn’t just a fun pastime — it could be a realistic career path.
“Soccer has always been what I did. But [when I saw that game] it was the first time I fell in love with it and then saw myself actually being able to achieve it,” she said. “Seeing women like that … it was really important for me.”
Years after roaming the sidelines as a ball girl, Isenhour returned to campus in a different capacity: She enrolled at DU in 2016, joined the Pioneers as a goaltender and pursued a degree in Real Estate and Construction Management at the Daniels College of Business. That same year, she emerged as one of the soccer program’s top players, earning Summit League Goalkeeper of the Year honors as a freshman.
After graduation, Isenhour turned pro, competing in the National Women’s Soccer League with Orlando Pride and Angel City FC. At the same time, she began cultivating a second career: growing her presence on social media.
“I started a podcast when I was at DU where I would interview athletes, and I interviewed an Olympic hurdler. She explained the way she was able to make a living as an Olympian was because of social media and her deals,” Isenhour said. “She explained how the landscape was changing, where it used to only be the LeBrons and the Kobes that would get the deals, but now, if you can build a platform on social media, you’re able to get those deals and have that more sustainable lifestyle. So that was part of my motivation.”
Her motivation soon grew into a passion to share her life with followers on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube –- a life that includes, of course, soccer. Her content ranges from a mix of training tips, soccer tricks, and hair and beauty tips to funny videos she films with her husband.
“I try to be funny and entertaining. But also, I want to help people feel not so alone, or help them if they’re going through something,” she explained. “I always try to think through the lens of, ‘What’s something I would have wanted to see along my journey?’ It could be knowing what gear to buy, or how to deal with the nerves before a game.”
Isenhour retired from playing professionally in 2024 and has dedicated herself to her influencer career full time. It’s a jump that’s paid off: She has nearly half a million followers on Instagram alone.
In a competitive content environment, Isenhour said, her business experience at DU has helped her level up her game. “The business experience—the finance, the accounting, the entrepreneurship class I took—has really helped in what I do today,” she said. Similarly, playing soccer has “helped with discipline, with showing up, with getting better.”
Perhaps the biggest contributor to her success, though, is her ability to adjust goals and dreams.
“For so much of my life, playing professionally was the end-all, be-all. But after a while of playing professionally, I thought, ‘Maybe this isn’t the lifestyle I want to live anymore.’ In some ways, it would have been easier to stay in it, because it didn’t make sense to a lot of people around me, like, ‘Why wouldn’t you want to continue this dream you’ve had forever?’ But listening to myself and being adaptable has served me well.”