Midfielder, captain, connector — Lo’eau LaBonta brings passion to the pitch and her life in Kansas City.
By Michelle Bacon | Photos by Simon Kuo
Whether it’s her love of fostering animals and spending quality time with her dog Amigo, eating her way through her Westside Kansas City neighborhood or enjoying a game of padel, Lo’eau LaBonta never stops moving.
“I thrive off chaos,” she quips.
It’s that endless vitality that has made her a pillar of the National Women’s Soccer League-leading KC Current team. A starting midfielder, Lo’eau’s decade of experience has set her up for athletic excellence both on and off the field. But even as the team captain and one of the sport’s most public figures — most notably going viral for her Celly Dance in 2022 — she’s quick to attribute the Teal Rising success to team players, leadership and the city that has invested in it.
“We are the standard right now,” she says of the team, which leads the NWSL with its state-of-the-art training facilities, having the first stadium in the world purpose-built for professional women’s sports and most importantly, producing a viable collective of competitors.
Though soccer was always her passion, the payoff was anything but immediate.
“Sports were life,” Lo’eau says of her upbringing in Rancho Cucamonga, CA. Raised mainly by her father, Mark, she and her younger brother, Koa, were entrenched in different sports as kids. She was most drawn to the ever-changing, always immersive game of soccer.
“It’s 45 minutes straight and another 45 after that, but there aren’t many breaks — you’re constantly going,” she says. “It’s a team sport — everything about it, I’ve always loved and have been really passionate about.”
As a student at Stanford University, Lo’eau continued playing but prioritized her education as the end game, pursuing an engineering degree. In that time, she helped the Stanford Cardinals win the 2011 national championship, and a year later, the National Women’s Soccer League was formed.
“I thought, let’s just try this professional soccer career. I’ve been playing my whole life — why not continue?” she recalls. But the path forward was slow, and challenges revealed themselves early on. “I was a semifinalist for the Herman Trophy in college. I was projected to be drafted in the top 10 and I ended up going second to last, so that was already the first big setback.”
From there, she inked a professional contract with Sky Blue FC (now Gotham FC) in 2015, for a modest $7,500 salary. Struggling with the league’s newness and lack of organization, the rookie was cut from the team. Lo’eau returned to Stanford for that engineering degree, and a year later was called to preseason tryouts with FC Kansas City. “And the rest was history,” she says, but not without a few extra barriers.
By then, in 2016, the league’s minimum salary was $10,000 per season, a mere pittance compared to the men’s Major League Soccer team, which guaranteed its reserve players a minimum of $51,500. “Just trying to be a pro athlete at that pay is insane, almost impossible, so I tried to figure out the other things to do to get by,” Lo’eau recalls. “I was having oatmeal for breakfast, lunch, and it was probably an appetizer for my dinner.”
It was also around this time that her now husband Roger Espinoza — at the time a Sporting KC midfielder and now an assistant coach — began to endear her to Kansas City.
“Being from California, I have the beach, the mountains,” she says. The rolling Midwestern plains were a change of pace. “[Roger] had lived in KC for almost 10 years, and he was the one who helped me look at KC from a different lens and actually embrace it for what it is.”
Just as she began finding her footing in the city of fountains, she was sent to the Utah Royals in 2018. Under the team’s steadier foundation and clearer direction at the time, Lo’eau’s career ascended. She became a starter, began doubling her number of goals and assists, and rose among the ranks of the NWSL as a true utility player –– quick to support and defend her teammates all over the field.
When 2020 upended the world with the pandemic — and then shattered her own with the loss of her brother, Koa — Lo’eau turned to what she knew best: structure, movement and care. Fostering animals gave her purpose beyond the field; soccer kept her grounded.
“As pro athletes, you’re just wired to always show up and be on time,” she says. “[Soccer was] the only thing that really kept me healthy and eating. Having that structure helped me maintain my sanity after losing my only sibling.”
Toward the end of 2020, the Utah Royals sold and transferred back to Kansas City, returning Lo’eau to the Midwest with her fellow teammates. At the time, Sporting KC was the established men’s soccer team, but professional women’s sports were still largely underground. After all, Lo’eau remembers being a part of FC Kansas City when the team won back-to-back NWSL championships (2014-2015), to little local fanfare.
The formation of KC Current took some time, but Lo’eau was at the forefront for its rapid evolution. “We didn’t have an identity yet, we were playing on a baseball field,” she remembers of the early days. “We were trying to progress the game but were brought back to the reality that it’s just not there yet.”
Five years on, the Current is one of Kansas City’s cornerstones — from its historical significance for women’s professional sports to the community ethos of its team. Lo’eau, who originated the infectious “KC BABY!” chant in a team huddle, has played a significant role in the accelerated development. It’s a role she takes seriously.
As she reflects on the team’s roots, she looks at her early years as a rookie in a fledgling new league. “Being here at the beginning compared to what it is now — there was no culture, no standards,” she says. “That’s what we fought for, so that the younger generation had the best facilities and equality.” She credits co-owners Chris and Angie Long for spearheading the Current’s training facility and stadium, along with head coach Vlatko Andonovski, for rebuilding the team on the field and charging her to set the tone off the field.
A natural-born connector, Lo’eau looked beyond the team’s early setbacks and cultivated unity, starting specifically in the locker room.
“When I get to a place, I’m like, what does the locker room look like? Are we all spread out? Is it tight-knit?” she says. “That is where the true conversations happen and you see the true sides, personalities and character of your teammates.”
With this particular team, she praised each player for setting the same standard of good-natured competition and authenticity. “It was the easiest job for me, because not only were these good quality players, but they were also genuine human beings,” Lo’eau says. “It’s everyone picking each other up and pushing them over the line, and there’s no organization if your players don’t believe in each other and put a product out there on the field.”
The city itself has followed in step with fervor for the 2025 playoff-seeded team, routinely packing out the 11,500-capacity CPKC Stadium since its 2024 opening. That spirit of community is something Lo’eau recognized early on in her time in Kansas City. She and Roger have since bought a home in the Westside.
“I love being in new spaces and meeting new people — I feed off the energy of others. You can find whatever you want in these different communities — that’s what I’ve enjoyed the most,” Lo’eau says of KC, often emphasizing her personality as a social butterfly. “Especially when they find out you’re with the Current, they immediately think it’s the coolest thing because of what we’re doing in the city.”
The veteran midfielder has firsthand experience inside the evolving perspective on women’s sports within the city. “We’re in a pretty unique situation in KC. They embrace their sports teams,” she says, pointing to the Chiefs, the Royals and Sporting KC. “When [Roger and I] would go around town, it always used to be like, ‘Roger, can we get a photo?’, and now it’s actually ‘LaBonta! Lo’eau!’, and he’s right there with me, so I’ve seen the shift. I’ve seen the city now supporting us, and I’ve also been at the beginning, where our name was never discussed at all. So I think it’s the coolest, proudest moment for me.”
As the “cool big sister” of the KC Current, Lo’eau is a team leader in every sense of the word. She contributed to their record-breaking 2024 season, where they scored the most goals in a single season and established the longest team unbeaten streak at 17 games. In May 2025, she made history as the oldest player to debut on the U.S. Women’s National Team, and only the second player of Hawaiian heritage.
There’s no stopping Lo’eau off the field, either. With her dog Amigo, Lo’eau has teamed up with Purina to showcase Kansas City as a pet-friendly destination. She and Roger are involved with organizations like Big Brothers Big Sisters and have started offering soccer training and clinics on the side. Most recently, they also had a hand in opening the first padel center in Kansas — La Casa del Padel.
“Padel is the fastest-growing sport in the world, so we wanted to bring it to KC. It’s a true athlete’s sport. It’s so fun, it’s so quick. The ball is always moving,” she says of the sport, somewhat of a mix between tennis and squash, a more physically demanding contrast to pickleball. “Padel is known around the world, so whoever’s coming here to play the World Cup, they won’t have just soccer games. They can go play padel like they would at home.”
As for the future of Lo’eau and her beloved Kansas City team? According to her, there’s no expiration date in sight. “I don’t ever want to stop playing, [the Current] will continue to grow and I’m just seeing it develop in front of me.” Her legacy, as she sees it — the infamous Celly Dance — is characteristic of the traits that make her the leader she’s become.
“If that’s my legacy, I’m more than happy with it because it is my true personality on the field; it’s exactly who I am,” she says. “At the end of the day, I don’t score that many goals, but I celebrate the little moments, the big moments. I always try to have a good time and celebrate my team.”
She continues to be in awe of the Current’s growth and its stature within the city, the sport and the culture that surrounds it.
“The stadium is always packed, it’s always loud, it’s teal and red everywhere. It’s such an advantage to play there and be that home team, and I think everyone’s looking at us now,” she says, believing that it sets a standard for other teams in the league as well as seeing how it will impact those coming after them.
“I can probably speak for every player on our team… that’s just the role we have in life — we want to inspire off the field and be in the community,” Lo’eau says. “Anybody on this team will immediately put up their hand to volunteer because that’s the human beings we have. They make you better on the field, but also off.”
