TAMPA, Fla. — Tampa Bay is getting its very own professional women’s soccer team.

The Tampa Bay Sun is the first of its kind in our area, and at the forefront is a female head coach and team president.

The field for the Tampa Bay Sun is currently under construction and head coach, Denise Schilte Brown, has a front-row seat as the groundwork is laid along the Hillsborough River.  

“So here we are at Blake High School. Home of Tampa Bay Sun, the new tier 1 professional women’s soccer team,” Schilte Brown said. “We’re actually going to have a water taxi. So if you are able to park anywhere along the river, you’ll be able to enjoy the game, enjoy the views as you enter into our brand new women’s soccer professional stadium.”

The new field will have amazing views, but Schilte Brown said the best view will be, of course, of the game on the field.

“We’re super excited about this location for multiple reasons. One is just the footprint in Tampa Bay,” Schilte Brown said. “What I think people think of when they think of Tampa Bay is this championship city, where professionals come and really make their career and take it to the next level, because I think all the pro teams here win championships.”

Schilte Brown said she’s hoping to change the face of those championships the bay area is so known for.

“Right now, they don’t think about women, but that’s what we’re changing. We have the opportunity for women to have that same championship mentality here — we’re going to bring that to Tampa Bay,” she said.

Coach Schilte Brown knows all about winning. She’s coached USF women’s soccer for the last 17 seasons. There, she led USF to six American Athletic Conference championships, including five straight seasons with a championship from 2017 to 2021, along with eight NCAA tournament appearances.

So, when it comes to selecting her new team, she’s planning to make history with that too.

“We’ve scoured the entire planet trying to find the best players that we can,” she said. “We’ve gone through every country — all of the professional players that are there. We did start in Tampa Bay, trying to find the best players in the area.”

The team is already getting a running start with their plan to make their mark here in Tampa Bay. Once their permanent new stadium is built somewhere in the city, the new field they’re going to use for now along the Hillsborough River behind Blake High School will be donated to the students there.

Being good leaders in sports on and off the field is what Tampa Bay Suns President Christina Unkel says it’s all about.

“Where people are like, 'It’s a lot, you’re never going to sleep. You’re going to be extreme, you’re going to lose your voice all the time,' Yeah of course, but we’re running thorough walls, and we’re going to pick up the bricks of those walls, and we’re going to build houses with them because we know the next generation and how it’s going impact not just girls, but boys,” she said.

Unkel is no stranger to knocking down walls. She’s a past NCAA collegiate soccer player, a former FIFA referee and a journalist. So she knows what it takes to run a championship team. Her background practicing law will also play a role as she serves as general counsel for the Tampa Bay Sun.

“We’re seeing women’s soccer moving into the business high-level side that has historically been overlooked, under-funded, and logged with debt. But being part of women’s soccer, I saw this coming a long time ago, and I said all we need is for people to invest, understand, and to believe that this isn’t just an idea, this is a reality,” Unkel said.

The Tampa Bay Sun season officially kicks off this August.