The Minnesota Mavericks Women’s Soccer Team Is Bonding Over Hair

The Mavericks women’s soccer team at Minnesota State University lives by one motto: Look good, feel good, play good. And with a current record of six wins, zero losses, and one draw, the college soccer team’s mantra is clearly working. Apart from obvious skill and talent on the field, there seems to be a third key element in creating a unified team that dominates the field: their hair.

High bubble ponytails. Dragon braids and a tight bun. Color ribbons and hair ties woven throughout. These fun and whimsical creations by Mavericks soccer player Ella Huettl are a welcome sight on the field and on everyone’s screens. The 21-year-old started braiding her teammates' hair her sophomore year for fun. But as Huettl had the social media savvy to keep posting her hairstyles for the internet to see, what started out as a small bonding moment soon became a viral sensation. “Wearing a different hairstyle makes the day feel more exciting and helps flip the switch between practice and game day,” Huettl tells Vogue. “The looks grew more elaborate [and] it has become a bonding experience that brings us together before we step onto the field. Like we always say, ‘Look good, feel good, play good.’”

Now with over 50k followers on IG alone and TikTok videos averaging hundreds of thousands (and sometimes even millions) of views, everyone is tuning in to see what she and her teammates are going to wear next.

Hair in Sports

Women are often judged more harshly than male counterparts in many aspects of life, but this is especially true in sports. According to Rachael Gibson, the writer known as The Hair Historian, any excuse to further police women on their outfit choice, nails, makeup, etc. while playing their respective sport has just been inevitable. And hair in particular, Gibson says, is often aggressively policed as it is linked to ideas of professionalism. “In the very slow process of permitting women to partake in professional sports, being able to assimilate as closely as possible to the neutral male default was understandably perhaps one less challenge to face,” she says. “So a slick ponytail, a braid, short cuts. Styles that blend in and reduce, rather than being another means to stand out.”

It wasn’t until the last couple of decades where a shift signaled some change in that thinking. She points to athletes such as Serena and Venus Williams, who wore beaded braids while competing in grand slams, and American track and field star Flo-Jo, who often wore her long, voluminous hair down while running races, as prime examples. Soccer player and activist Megan Rapinoe is synonymous with her signature cropped pink hair. Now, more women are using hair as an extension of their identity on the field.

At today’s collegiate level of soccer, there aren’t really any hard rules on how players can wear their hair. Lizzy Vetter, assistant coach for the Minnesota State Mavericks women’s soccer team, says that even with some referees calling for players to remove bobby pins or barrettes (to protect them from the head contact that occurs in soccer), rules about hair have gotten more lax throughout the years. “[The players] can wear hair however they feel comfortable,” Vetter says. “While rare, some even choose to wear it down.”

The Styling Process

Huettl is methodical in her approach. For each game day, she creates a schedule with time slots for everyone who is coming to get their hair done. She focuses on the core group of girls on the team she works with regularly (“We have 42 players on our team, so unfortunately, I don’t have enough time to do everyone’s hair,” she says). If anyone else on the team reaches out and asks her to style their hair, she won’t say no and will try to fit them in. She then organizes her products, which include the Eco Style Gel and TIY Hair Ties as her current go-tos, before her first styling session and spaces out appointments about 25 to 30 minutes apart to stay on schedule. The most she’s ever done for one game has been 11 hairstyles, starting as early as 10:30 am for a 7 p.m. game.

Each teammate either chooses a style that they’ve done before or brings in a picture reference from Pinterest or TikTok for her to recreate. There are even times when she and a teammate will experiment and come up with their own hairstyles together. “I love when my teammates challenge me with new [hair] ideas,” she says. “And getting to create styles that help them feel confident during the game.”

As a quick learner, she is also able to style and braid any and all hair textures. When it comes to styling naturally curly hair specifically, she says it was a “practice makes perfect” process that made her more comfortable working with different hair types and more creative styles. “I surprised myself the first time I tried styling very curly hair and realized I could do it,” she says. “Once you understand the basics of braiding, you can adapt those skills to different hair textures and create so many different styles.”

Her teammate and roommate Ruthie Gyasi can personally attest to it. The 21-year-old has been having Huettl style her naturally curly textured hair for games a few times since last year (“It would be more if I didn’t know how to style my own hair,” Gyasi adds). She’ll show Huettl which curly hair products work best to smooth out frizz or how to set braids so that they last longer, but other than that, she lets Huettl do her thing. “She has always been up for the challenge, [and] it’s definitely been cool to see her get better and better at styling my type of hair,” Gyasi tells Vogue. “I can tell she has gotten a lot more confident.”

“I’m also always open to advice from my teammates, especially when they know which products and techniques work best for their own hair,” says Huettl. “The more I’ve practiced and learned from them, the more comfortable and confident I’ve become.”

The Team’s—and the Internet’s—Favorite Looks

A bun and braid combo is the go-to for many on the team. Meghan Sullivan, a 20-year-old junior who has been on the team since her freshman year, has had Huettl style her hair for every game for the past three years. At first, Sullivan would get two Dutch braids and a bun, but this year she changed it up with the popular dragon braid and a bun. Apart from wanting to spruce up her own hair with braids she doesn’t know how to do herself, getting her hair styled has become a necessary ritual Sullivan needs for her game. “This is a superstition that Ella and I have,” she says. “If she doesn’t do my hair, then I don’t play as well.”

Senior Anna Stromberg first started getting her hair styled by Huettl sophomore year, and likes to do a bun with either four braids, dragon braids, or two braids. If she’s running out of ideas, Stromberg will say, “Ella, do whatever you want” and let Huettl’s creativity take it from there. Gyasi’s favorite look is four small braids paired with a bun.

Vetter loves whatever styles her players feel their best in (special shout-out to the classic bubble braid if she had to choose), and has even gotten her hair styled by Huettl for a fun bonding moment between her and the players. “As one of the only female coaches on staff, I too relate to wanting to feel my best on gamedays,” says Vetter. “Having your hair styled is a part of that.

But Huettl’s personal favorite looks are ones that she’s created for games with a good cause, such green elastics, glitter, and hair ties for the team’s Mental Health Awareness Game or pink details for the Breast Cancer Awareness Game. “I love being able to create hairstyles that reflect the importance and energy of those games,” she says.

Braids and the Bonds of Sisterhood

The act of braiding each other’s hair throughout history is what Gibson calls an intimate one. “You’re letting someone be very close to you for an extended period of time, entrusting them with something that is valuable, loaded with meaning, and has a big impact on how you feel,” she explains. “[It] is why the act of dressing hair is one that’s so closely tied to building community.”

For the Minnesota Mavericks, the braiding and hairstyling is more than just a vanity project. Prep for big games aren’t only about calming nerves or memorizing plays (and, according to Stromberg, enjoying delicious pregame bagels), it’s also time to grow closer as a team. “The fact that most of our team is coming together before games to make sure we look our best and all helping each other out is what womanhood is all about,” says Gyasi. “It makes me feel special to be a part of it.”

The bonds even go beyond the locker room and outside the team. Sullivan points to Huettl’s TikTok lives where they both will interact with viewers while Huettl is braiding hair, answering questions and replying to comments. Stromberg adds that she has other athlete friends from different colleges who like to look to the Mavericks for fun hair inspo or put in requests for styles they’d like her to wear. “Everyone gets so excited when I ask them [“What should I do for my hair this game?”] because it’s such a special thing to have their request be seen,” she says. Other soccer teams also seem to be taking a cue from their hair creativity.

“I’ve started noticing more teams embracing fun game day hairstyles,” says Huettl. “Bows and glitter are definitely becoming more popular in the soccer world, which I love to see. It’s especially exciting when people send me pictures of hairstyles they’ve created using my videos as inspiration.”

While talk of brand deals and hairstyling as a profession are natural assumptions as next steps post-college, Huettl says that for now, this is just a fun hobby. She looks forward to possibly styling her younger sister's hair when she starts college and plays volleyball, and is confident that the opportunity to continue styling hair and sharing tutorials online will be there even after her soccer career ends. Regardless of where she might end up after graduation, she’s cemented quite a legacy at Minnesota.

“We always talk about how after you graduate and you are reflecting on your experience, your first thought may not be about certain games or practices, but instead of your teammates and how they made you feel,” says Vetter. “Ella is certainly leaving a mark on our program and athletes.”

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