Every team has their superstar starters, but no one person can win a championship on their own. Oftentimes, the back support of a team, better known as the bench, gets overlooked.

But these players have a role that is just as essential to winning games as the leading goal scorer, and Abby Crumpton can carry the weight.

“As a developmental player, I’m here to get better, but I’m also here to push the people that start, make practices competitive for them, and help them get better,” said Crumpton.

But that doesn’t mean she’s settled for the sideline indefinitely. For Crumpton, the taste of stardom is not unfamiliar.

The 28-year-old graduated from University of Michigan as the school’s all-time leading scorer with 43 goals and 30 assists, and was named the 2002 Big Ten Player of the Year. Her knack for finding the back of the net helped her team reach the Elite 8 in her final season, the farthest the team had ever gotten together. She also played for the U-21 U.S. Women’s National Team, through which she discovered her love for travel.

After college, Crumpton played in the first professional women’s soccer league, the WUSA. As a midfielder for the Atlanta Beat, Crumpton sweat through 100-degree summer heat, and in the final season before the league’s collapse, her team went to the Founders Cup championship game, where they fell short to the Washington Freedom.

After the WUSA folded, Crumpton ceased playing for four years until joining the W-League’s Charlotte Eagles in 2007. All the while she projected her soccer knowledge onto others as a coach for several college teams.

“Soccer has been my life since I’ve been a little kid,” said Crumption before adding, “It’s something I enjoy doing, and it’s always nice to get paid for doing something you like to do.”

While Crumpton says she can see coaching in her future, she majored in sports management and would like to see the game from the administrative side of things too.

Yet when professional women’s soccer returned with the start of WPS, Crumpton decided to dust off her cleats for another go. As a Boston Breaker the second time around, things are quite different for Crumpton, besides the drastic change in climate. For example, the unstoppable striker has switched to defense.

“I think the transition is easier because you’re always going forward, and when you’re playing up top you’re always back to goal,” she said.

She also doesn’t feel she’s quite where she used to be, due to her four year hiatus, but as the season goes on, she says she is starting to feel like her old self again. “For me to be back here is like a miracle, literally,” said Crumpton, who understands that even from the bench, she can still contribute a lot to her team.

Like experience. Breakers coach Tony DiCicco said that because Crumpton is one of the few WUSA veterans, she “understands the professional approach and mentality.”  He said that her, and other veterans, do a better job staying healthy, train with more detail, and take the initiative to work out and improve on their own time—something many of the younger players don’t understand.

Crumpton is able to influence her younger teammates to take on a similar mentality and to teach them a very important lesson that she learned from the WUSA. “You can’t take it for granted because obviously the league folded the first time around,” she said. “You just have to enjoy every day because you never know.”

Although she has yet to see the field this season, DiCicco said that Crumpton is very likely to get her WPS debut soon as the Breakers take on four games in a span of 11 days.

“We’re still in the first third of the season, and as there are injuries and international call-ups, we need Abby to be healthy because she will see action in that period,” said DiCicco. “It’s vital that these players keep themselves under the cutting edge.”