With Green Laces, Red Stars' Spilger puts her foot down

"I, Natalie Spilger, promise to never purchase a non-reusable plastic water bottle, unless in an emergency situation."

Green Laces Promise No. 1, Natalie Spilger

Chicago Red Stars defender Natalie Spilger likes to sign autographs with a green pen. It matches her green shoelaces and her green promises.

The former energy engineer is combining two of her passions - soccer and the environment - into her work on her Web site, greenlaces.org.

It's all about athletes using their celebrity status - "online, so that we're sharing it with the world," she said - to make a statement about supporting environmental causes.

"Really what it is, is about being green in your own shade and saying, I'm an environmental steward, I put my action on the line in what I'm promising to do, and then I wear the laces to show everyone that I am taking action in my personal life," Spilger said.

"The laces just kind of came to mind as a way to say I'm green. As anyone who knows me knows, I get really excited and I want to express myself, and I didn't feel like I had a way to do that with the environment. I didn't have a pink ribbon or a yellow bracelet or a cross or whatever it is to express my values."

The Stanford graduate is all about action. Friday she was making her case to the Chicago Sky women's basketball team. As a professional athlete, Spilger is a member of an exclusive club, and that gets her into a lot of club meetings.

"It's tripled the amount of exposure that we're getting, and it also gives the organization more credibility," Spilger said of her return to professional athletics in the first year of Women's Professional Soccer. "It's started by a professional athlete for athletes, and now that I have that status and a league that exists to support it that's in our own backyard, I think it gives me a lot more clout in approaching NFL players or even administration for Major League Baseball teams. I'm not an outsider coming to them; I'm an insider saying, Let's activate our troops. And I'm one of them. I'm a troop member."

"I, Dhani Jones, promise to ride my bike to work 50 percent of the time and get three of my teammates to ride their bikes."

Green Laces Promise No. 471, Dhani Jones, Cincinnati Bengals

The problem comes when athletes add the green laces to their uniforms, or sometimes when they tell their teams about it instead of just doing it. Most pro teams these days have licensing agreements and league uniform codes they have to be conscious of. For instance, Spilger said, Dhani Jones and Joey Porter each expect to face a $10,000 fine from the NFL when they wear green laces during a game.

Why athletes? It's simple.

"I just kind of got the idea that there's really a ton of room for athletes to step up and be green. We're icons, we're celebrated, we can inspire those around us," Spilger said.

Green Laces, though, accepts donations and promises from athletes of every stripe, defining the term widely enough to include Spilger's grandmother "who does the elliptical twice a week."

Though her salary comes nowhere near what most professional athletes make these days, Spilger has put her money where her mouth is. She estimates she's poured "tens of thousands" of dollars into Green Laces, with help from family and friends. She doesn't regret a dollar of it.

"You can't put a price on the value I'm getting just from learning and running a (not-for-profit) company and giving other athletes a way to show their support. It's been a very rewarding experience," Spilger said.

And when her playing days are over, Spilger, 27, plans to continue working on Green Laces.

"Hopefully, at that point Green Laces will have the capacity to carry someone full time, and if it doesn't I'll probably do some odd jobs and continue to devote myself full time to it. That's what I'm passionate about and I've found something I love and I won't give up on it until," Spilger said, pausing to consider her answer, "well, maybe never."

oschwarz@dailyherald.com

Chicago Red Stars at Boston Breakers

When: 6 p.m. today at Harvard Stadium

TV: none

Scouting the Red Stars: With two consecutive victories the ever-confident Red Stars (4-6-5, 17 points) feel like they're just beginning to jell and get some breaks. If they want to get their first road win since April 4, they need to continue to finish scoring chances.

Scouting the Boston Breakers: Sunday's loss dropped Boston (5-6-3, 18 points) into a third-place tie. Another loss could drop Heather Mitts and Co. out of a playoff spot.

Next game: at Sky Blue FC (New Jersey), Sunday