An inside look at Sabrina Miller’s (MBA ’26) soccer career and path to HBS.
For as long as she can remember, fútbol has been a family business for Sabrina Miller (MBA ’26).
Born and raised in Bakersfield, California – a town she describes as having “not much to do other than play sports” – Miller began playing the beautiful game at age four. Her brother, 10 years her senior, played competitively, so she first experienced the game as she tagged along on weekend trips, learning the ropes and familiarizing herself with the sport as her family followed her brother’s career to games and tournaments across the West Coast. Unfortunately, a serious injury as a high schooler ended her brother’s career, so the family focus passed to her at an early age.
Committed to picking up where her brother left off, Miller embarked on a career of her own. She had long dreamt of playing collegiately at UC-Santa Barbara, a school with a rich enough tradition in the sport that their home stadium is referred to as “Soccer Heaven.” However, as she began to receive recruiting attention in high school, her plans changed. After hearing from schools all over the country, she parlayed an all-area career at Stockdale High School into a full scholarship to San Jose State University, where she was coach Lauren Hanson’s first recruit. So, despite this departure from her original aspirations, Miller quickly built her own “soccer heaven” in the South Bay. Under the tutelage of Hanson – a former member of the US Women’s National Team – she developed a reputation for her intensity and strong work ethic during a successful freshman season, quickly earning a starting role over several more experienced players.
When asked to describe her presence on the field, Miller responds with one word: “workhorse.” As an outside back, the last line of defense against the opposition’s fastest players, she modeled her game after legends like Vincent Kompany and Abby Wambach, both of whom were renowned for their outsized vocal and physical presence on the field and in the locker room. Rather than for her natural skill or creativity, she sought to be recognized as a player willing to “run through a wall for a ball” and became known as the “engine” of every team she played for. Players like this generally command tremendous respect from their teammates, and Miller was no exception; even as a younger player, she built strong connections with teammates from a variety of backgrounds, a trait that she’s maintained into her adult life.
With a year of experience and the trust of her teammates and coaches, Miller seemed to be destined for an outstanding collegiate career after her freshman year. Though she still describes her time at SJSU as a “golden ticket,” it wasn’t without its challenges. After her strong debut season, she was diagnosed with a severe lung disease that involved several hospital trips and required a full year of intense rehab and recovery. A health problem of this sort would be challenging for anyone to deal with, much less a competitive athlete in a sport that demands excellent cardiovascular fitness. She faced a crossroads in her career -- while she ached to return to the field, her now-diminished lung capacity as well as side effects from the battery of medicines she’d taken for the condition caused her to quickly realize that her hard-nosed, intense approach to the sport would be impossible to maintain successfully given her new reality. As such, she went back to the drawing board, learning to play a more measured style that conserved energy where possible to ensure that she was able to perform for a full 90-minute game.
A “smarter, more technical player” than she was before her injury, this adjustment allowed her to return better than ever as a junior; she appeared in all 20 games, scoring three goals for a team that ultimately finished 2nd in conference play. Named a Team Captain for her senior season, she again appeared in every game and helped lead the Spartans to their first Mountain West Conference title, putting a bow on what was a very successful college career.
And though the thought of playing professionally crossed her mind, Miller – an All-Conference Academic performer as a Management Information Systems major – had opportunities off the pitch that made her immediate career decision a more complicated one. Ultimately, an opportunity to work as an supercomputing analyst at NASA’s Ames Research Center proved too attractive, and Miller hung up the spikes to pursue a career beyond the pitch. After two years at NASA, she transitioned to a product management role at Panzura, where she relished the level of ownership she was given as a young professional.
However, despite her successful transition to the corporate world, she experienced the loss of identity so common among athletes whose sport had become a defining characteristic of their personality. With that, she found ways to integrate pieces of her past life into her professional and personal lives. As a PM, she likened the adrenaline rush she felt on product launch days to game days as a soccer player, and she leveraged the team-building skills she developed as Coach Hanson’s first recruit at SJSU to motivate and coordinate diverse groups of stakeholders in pursuit of a common goal.
Her drive to move across the country and attend HBS followed a similar set of impulses; she applied to several schools, but immediately fell in love with the team-focused learning experience at HBS. Despite acceptances from other programs, Miller had her heart set on coming to Boston -- so much so that she would have reapplied this year had she not been accepted last spring. Since arriving on campus, she’s been impressed by the high-achieving nature of her classmates and is enjoying having the opportunity to build strong relationships with individuals from all walks of life, just as she’d done on the field and in the professional world.
Perhaps most importantly, she’s kept soccer at the center of her personal life – not only does she play recreationally for the club team here at HBS, but she met her partner, Carlos, through the sport as well. A Captain of the men’s team at SJSU that went on to play in the United Soccer League, they met as freshmen and began dating years later after reconnecting as part of the close-knit soccer community in San Jose. He followed her to Boston and is coaching at Watertown High School in addition to his career in real estate development.
After graduation, she hopes to pursue a career in Venture Capital – perhaps with a stop in New York City prior to returning to the West Coast. Before that, however, she hopes to continue making friends and having the once-in-a-lifetime experiences that sold her on HBS from the beginning. With that, she won’t be hard to find on campus – as a proud member of any of Section I’s intramural squads, in the classroom, or anywhere else.
John Mahoney (MBA ’26) is a native of West Des Moines, Iowa. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2021 with a degree in Finance. While in college, he was a walk-on defensive back for the Fighting Irish and wrote a book about his experience, titled History Through The Headsets. Prior to coming to HBS, John worked in consulting and strategy in Minneapolis and Chicago.
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