Maycee Bell

Maycee Nicole Bell (born September 18, 2000) is an American professional soccer player who plays as a defender for NJ/NY Gotham FC of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). Born and raised in Wichita, Kansas, she played college soccer for the North Carolina Tar Heels. She was selected by Gotham in the first round of the 2024 NWSL Draft.

Early life
Bell was born in Wichita, Kansas, to former college basketball players Brett and Kristy Bell, and has five younger siblings. She began playing soccer as a forward but was converted to center back at her first youth national team training camp in 2014. She said she "realized I loved stopping people from scoring more than I actually loved scoring" and modeled her game partly after national team defender Becky Sauerbrunn.

Bell played one year of high school soccer as a freshman at Trinity Academy, scoring 19 goals at forward in 14 games, and was named Kansas's 2015–16 Gatorade Player of the Year, but missed the playoffs while traveling with the youth national team. She moved to the Kansas City area to play all year with ECNL club Sporting Blue Valley, which she captained from 2014 to 2017, and she played with the NC Courage Development Academy. She attended three high schools in the Kansas City area: Blue Valley Southwest, Blue Valley West, and Insight School of Kansas.

College career
Bell was a starter for the North Carolina Tar Heels from her first week in August 2019, when she was named the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Defensive Player of the Week. She scored three goals as a freshman, including one in the 2019 ACC tournament final and one to advance in the 2019 NCAA tournament, where the team finished runners-up. She was named ACC Freshman of the Year and second-team All-ACC. She was named to the All-ACC first team in 2020 but missed most of the postseason that spring after injuring an ankle and requiring surgery in March 2021. She rehabbed for two months before returning during the 2020–21 NCAA tournament quarterfinals.

In her junior year, Bell was named second-team All-American and first-team All-ACC, but injured her left ankle in the second-to-last match of the 2021 regular season. She tore her left meniscus in the first game of her senior year and sat out the rest of the 2022 season. In the summer before her last college season in 2023, she was named to the roster of the Kansas City Current II, an amateur Women's Premier Soccer League (WPSL) club. She co-captained the North Carolina team as a redshirt senior and was named to the All-ACC second team.

Club career
Reigning NWSL champions NJ/NY Gotham FC selected Bell with the 14th overall pick in the first round of the 2024 NWSL Draft, their sole pick of the night. She signed a three-year guaranteed contract with the team in February 2024. She made her club debut as a substitute in the 2024 NWSL Challenge Cup on March 15 and made her first regular season appearance as a substitute in an away loss to the Washington Spirit on April 20. She made her first start in a 1–0 win over the Houston Dash on May 8. She scored her first goal, off a Jenna Nighswonger cross, in the eighth minute of second-half stoppage time to defeat the San Diego Wave 2–1 on June 19.

International career
Bell trained with the United States youth national team beginning at the under-16 level in 2014. She scored for the under-20 team in a friendly in March 2019 and recorded her first assist at the under-20 level at the 2020 CONCACAF Women's U-20 Championship. She was first called up to train with the senior national team in December 2019 but missed the camp due to injury.