Women’s professional soccer is making a U.S. comeback, and a Palo Alto, Calif., attorney who never played the game is an unlikely but indispensable booster.

Vicki Veenker remembers when the first women’s U.S. soccer league, the Women’s United Soccer Association, folded in 2003 because teams couldn’t fill stadiums or get sponsorships. Her daughter, an avid soccer player and fan, wanted to know why the San Jose CyberRays didn’t play anymore, but the city’s men’s team, the Earthquakes, did.