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 "U-S-A, U-S-A," chanted thousands waving U.S. flags as the parade
moved north from lower Manhattan, cheered by a crowd thick with
girls decked out in soccer socks and star-spangled headbands.
The parade ended at City Hall, where Mayor Bill de Blasio handed
each player a symbolic key to the city in a ceremony punctuated with
more cheering and red, white and blue confetti.
"When they brought home that trophy, they also brought a message
about the power of women," de Blasio said.
The U.S. women's all-time leading goalscorer, Abby Wambach, gathered
her teammates and they lifted the World Cup trophy on the outdoor
stage. Head coach Jill Ellis and other team staff were also honored.
"This will absolutely go down as one of, if not the best, things
I've ever been a part of," Wambach said.
The victorious women's team joins the ranks of Apollo astronauts,
foreign monarchs and baseball's New York Yankees in being honored
with a parade and a granite marker on Broadway in lower Manhattan.
The United States defeated Japan 5-2 in the FIFA Women's World Cup
final on Sunday in Vancouver, Canada, the third time the U.S. women
have won the title of world champions.
While watching the parade, a group of self-proclaimed soccer moms
from East Brunswick, New Jersey, hometown of U.S. midfielder Heather
O'Reilly, said the next hurdle for women athletes is equal pay.
"Parade first, then the money," said Lynne Dunbar, 62.
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Next week in Congress, U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont will
introduce a resolution calling on the Fédération Internationale de
Football Association (FIFA) to immediately eliminate gender pay
inequity between men and women athletes.
The last woman athlete to be honored with a ticker tape parade was
Olympic figure skating champion Carol Heiss Jenkins in 1960.
The New York tradition began in 1886, when people who worked in
skyscrapers threw ticker tape - ribbons of white paper on which
stock information was recorded in those days - onto a parade
celebrating the dedication of the Statue of Liberty.
With stock information now computerized, ticker tape has been
replaced with shredded office paper and confetti. On Thursday, the
Downtown Alliance neighborhood group delivered about two tons of
shredded paper to more than 50 buildings and tenants along the
parade route, a fraction of which was used.
(Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Lisa Lambert
and Grant McCool)
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