Nestled inside a memory box in Douglasville, Georgia, Kandi Vaughn still has the letter, filled with the words her daughter couldn’t bring herself to say.

Macey Hodge wrote it in February 2019, when things were at their worst. Her sister was sick. Her birth father wasn’t there. The sport that used to bring her joy brought only anxiety.

So the girl who loved soccer — who knew by the time she was 8 years old she wanted to play in the Southeastern Conference, who was months away from realizing that dream — stepped away.

In the letter she wrote to her mom and her stepdad Michael, Hodge broke the news: She was quitting the sport and leaving her college scholarship behind.

But Macey Hodge’s soccer career didn’t end there. 

Two and a half years later, though plenty of things have changed, Hodge is playing in the SEC after all. She’s a captain at Mississippi State, she’s leading on and off the field, and — most important of all — she feels like Macey Hodge again.

“The transformation of her from what she’s been through, what she’s had to deal with that most don’t deal with, and where she is today is just incredible,” Vaughn said.

* * *

Hodge played for the Southern Soccer Academy club program ever since she was 8. When she turned 13, she joined SSA’s Chelsea ’00 Girls Elite squad, the top team in her age group, coached by Jordan Davis.

With her willingness to learn different positions, Hodge immediately stood out to Davis as a “student of the game.” She started out as a center back, moved to center forward for a year when the team needed it and eventually settled at center midfield.

At Alexander High School, Hodge was named the team MVP as a freshman and sophomore. In August 2017, at the end of her sophomore year, she committed to play at Vanderbilt. More than 200 people showed up to her signing ceremony in January 2019.

But as Hodge neared the end of her high school career, her love for the sport faded. She felt the pressure to perform mounting like never before. When she stepped on the field, anxiety overtook her.

“I was just in a really bad place mentally where I wasn’t my fun, happy, bubbly self,” Hodge said.

Vaughn said her daughter’s life at home was part of the reason. Hodge’s biological father had been in and out of her life because of addiction since she was young, and her sister Alyssa, who has a rare genetic disorder called Williams Syndrome, was diagnosed with a kidney disease that February. (Alyssa is doing well and ultimately did not need a transplant, but the diagnosis “came as a shocker” for the family.)

With a few months to go in her senior year, Hodge knew she couldn’t continue to play soccer. After a family cruise to the Bahamas, she sat down with her parents to read them the letter, telling them she was stepping away from soccer and wouldn’t be going to Vanderbilt.

“I was in such a bad place mentally that if I came in, I wouldn’t have made an impact at all because I wouldn’t have been in the headspace to play at my best level or even impact the team in any way,” Hodge said.

Hodge’s parents were shocked more than they were disappointed. They realized how many conversations with Macey had been about soccer, how closely she and the sport were commingled in the minds of so many.

“It just made you go, ‘Oh. Did I contribute to that at all?’” Vaughn said. “‘Prayerfully not, but if I did in any way, shape or form, I’m sorry.’”

Hodge finished her senior year, earning team MVP honors again. When she came off the field after a 4-0 loss to Pope High School in the second round of the playoffs on May 1, she came to terms with the end of her soccer career.

“I remember that feeling of coming off that field and saying, ‘Wow, this might have been the last time I ever played,’” Hodge said. “It really didn’t sit right with me, but at the time it was really not my choice anymore.”

* * *

With her soccer career on hold, Hodge did her best to figure out how to be herself — and how to be happy — when so much of her identity was tied to the sport.

“It was almost like she wasn’t Macey without soccer, and she needed to be just Macey,” Vaughn said.

During the fall semester of 2019, Hodge did her best to find herself while staying close to home. She attended the University of West Georgia, less than 40 minutes from Douglasville, but she lived at home. Her parents made Hodge her own entry and exit in her basement room to give their daughter her own space for schoolwork and relaxation.

And they got to spend more time with her than ever before.

“That was kind of a time period where we did just get to love on her,” Vaughn said. “All those years, she was gone at training most of the time. Any free time was really soccer time, so it really wasn’t free time. That was definitely a time where we could grow in our relationships with her.”

Particularly in a year when so much around her was going wrong, Hodge was able to benefit from the extra time with her family, too.

“I think they kind of brought me up a little bit in that time that I was down, and being around them kind of showed me, ‘OK, I’m growing. I’m going to be OK,’” she said.

Instead of a rigorous training schedule, Hodge got to spend more time with her friends or take her rescued pit bull Blue to the dog park more often

But she was still busy. In addition to her coursework at West Georgia, Hodge took dual-credit classes through Alexander High. She also worked as a cashier at Kroger in Douglasville, sometimes starting shifts at 5 a.m.

“Not playing soccer and not giving her all to that, she had extra time on her hands and wanted to do things for herself, buy things for herself, take care of some needs and wants on her own,” Vaughn said. “That was all her taking on that job. … When she’s involved in something, she’s committed to it.”

By midway through the fall, Hodge felt back on track in terms of her mental health. Still, something was missing, a “gap” in her life waiting to be filled.

“I was like ‘OK, what is that?” Hodge said. “What is this void?”

During that fall semester, Hodge visited Laney Steed, a fellow co-captain on her Chelsea club team and a freshman midfielder at the University of Florida. Once again, SEC soccer was on Hodge’s radar.

“It kind of lit the fire as far as, ‘Would I want this again for myself?’” Davis said.

* * *

In October, Hodge called Vaughn down to her basement room for another unforgettable conversation. This time, though, the words were easy to get out.

Hodge was ready to give her sport another try.

“Mom, I’m not who I am and who I want to be without soccer and without doing what I love the most,” she told Vaughn.

She wrote Davis a letter expressing interest in returning to the game, and he helped her navigate a tough recruiting process. The club coach had checked in on Hodge after she stepped away. He wasn’t surprised to see her return.

And while most players Davis saw step away ended up returning at a lower level — Division I to Division II or junior college — it was different with Hodge. She remained an SEC recruit, checking in with the same schools she had visited in high school. (Davis let Vanderbilt know Hodge had reopened her options.)

But it was Mississippi State that caught her eye. Davis had worked with Bulldogs assistant Nick Zimmerman at Columbus State, and fellow assistant Brian Dunleavy had worked at Georgia Southern. The existing relationship allowed the coaches to be honest with Hodge. If she wanted a spot on the team, it was hers.

“They’ll take a chance on me if I take a chance on them,” Hodge said.

She did, enrolling at Mississippi State for the spring 2020 semester. But after coming to Starkville without knowing anyone, she felt alone and unsure. She called Vaughn, upset.

“Should I have made this decision?” Hodge asked. “Did I make the right decision? Mom, I’m not sure.”

By a week and a half into the semester, those worries were gone. Hodge had made friends, and she fit in just fine.

But she still had a ways to go in terms of getting back into game shape. Davis said the process typically takes at least a few months, and Hodge was no exception. She had to work on adjusting to the speed of play, regaining her technical and tactical skills and upping her conditioning to get match fit.

“She knew that, she accepted that, she embraced that, and she worked really hard at that — every aspect,” Mississippi State head coach James Armstrong said.

Hodge came off the bench in the Bulldogs’ first game of 2020 against Auburn. She started the rest of her 12 games between the fall and spring seasons, playing wherever needed — attacking midfielder, holding midfielder, center back.

And her teammates took notice of her focus and vocal leadership. In addition to the coaches’ vote, Hodge was named one of the Bulldogs’ three captains by team vote.

Davis said seeing the selection was “icing on the cake” that Hodge had made the right choice by stepping away. He mentioned the growing trends of athletes prioritizing their mental health, like gymnast Simone Biles at the Olympics, by taking a hiatus from their sports.

“Credit to her for realizing that would need to be addressed before she could do what she’s doing, and she’s all the better for it,” Davis said.

Hodge’s family — ”we’re her little paparazzi,” Vaughn said — make the drive for as many games as they can. When they’re in the stands, they see what Davis sees in the clips he’s watched: Hodge “buzzing” all over the field like the player he once knew.

After all, she is the player — and person — she used to be.

“Once I decided to come back, I was very happy about it, so I’m super happy now,” Hodge said.

Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.

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