On a frigid night in Cary, North Carolina, NC State men’s soccer faced a 2-1 deficit in the national championship game. The team was riding the high of the best season in program history, but it would be over in three minutes if they didn’t score.
Calmly working up the pitch, a trio of seniors tries to make the best of this last-chance opportunity for the Wolfpack. Right back Calem Tommy beats his man to cut the ball inside for midfielder Justin McLean, and McLean rolls it off to midfielder Taig Healy, who suddenly finds daylight inside the penalty arc.
Healy has taken and missed shots from this spot dozens of times for NC State. Skyward, wide right, into a defender’s chest. This one will be different, though. Healy doesn’t hesitate as he lobs the tournament ball past Washington’s defenders and under its diving goalkeeper, sending the crowd into a frenzy.
Healy’s strike kept the Pack’s championship hopes alive for just a few more minutes. The team fell 3-2 in extra time, but wouldn’t have gotten so far in the tournament without Healy’s heroics.
Healy spent much of this season annoyed at himself for not finding the back of the net. But he never stopped believing in himself. He was annoyed because he believed. He knew what he was capable of. In the postseason, his commitment paid off when he scored four times in four games to end the season.
Perhaps no one but Healy himself thought it would work out that way, but his confidence is visible to those around him. It’s even more evident watching him play. Despite netting a single goal in the regular season, he never shied away from a scoring opportunity, and he didn’t let his missed shots impact other areas of his play.
“I’m still gonna walk out, and even though I can’t score a goal, I’m gonna act as confident as I can be,” Healy said. “I’m just gonna set up other guys, I’m gonna help us in transition, I’m gonna press.”
That’s exactly what he did, notching the most assists on the team by the time he scored his first goal in a road win over Duke. It was the team’s first ranked win of the season and the program’s first win in Durham in over 15 years. Hubbard praised his character afterward.
“He’s got unbelievable confidence,” Hubbard said. “Even though it’s been a tough year for him in terms of getting on the score sheet, he’s the type of guy that wakes up still feeling like he can do something incredible.”
It’s always been Healy’s dream to play soccer for a living, and he believes that he owes it to the people who have sacrificed for him to do his best. Not just his family, who he relies on in tough times and who supported him through his youth soccer journey, but all of the friends and teammates he’s had along the way.
“They have no need to watch my games or check up on me and how my season’s doing,” Healy said. “But they do because they care about me, so it makes me want to be successful.”
Healy says making new connections and catching up with old teammates is one of the best parts of the sport. At NC State, he found a community with an amazing support staff that made him feel loved. In return, he wants to represent the Wolfpack at the pro level and keep them on the map.
“I want to continue to elevate my game and prove to people that I can play in the highest league,” Healy said.
From being the smallest player on his academy team to riding the bench as a freshman at the University of New Hampshire, Healy has always used proving people wrong as motivation. His profile has already caught the eye of Fort Wayne FC head coach Mike Avery, who recruited Healy for the team’s first season in USL League One.
“When we see a player emerge in the toughest moments of a game or a season … He is the kind of player you can count on when tasked with building a new team for a new, higher level,” Avery said.
Even as Healy’s shots weren’t finding the net, he was a critical part of a team that played for a national championship. Now he’s ready to take his swagger to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and prove that he can keep climbing the levels. He’s excited to play in big matches, which he considers an important part of his own game.
“That’s why you play, to play in those big games like we did against St. Louis and Washington,” Healy said. “That was the coolest weekend ever.”
You can’t help but feel like he wakes up thinking he can do something incredible, and his ultimate goal is Europe.
“I would love to play in Europe eventually, even if just for a couple of years,” Healy said. “I think it’d be so fun to live there and obviously, everyone’s life is just footy. So I think that’d be so fun to be a part of … that would definitely be a dream come true.”
