Few members of the Portland Thorns feel more at home in Providence Park than fifth-year goalkeeper Bella Bixby.

As a graduate of Milwaukie’s Rex Putnam High School and later Oregon State University, Bixby’s ties to the Rose City and Beaver State run deep.

Portland is her home, and the soccer pitch a necessary and consistent destination. But in the midst of an upstart professional soccer career in comfortable surroundings, Bixby’s world came crashing down last year as a sudden loss changed her perspective.

Bixby’s father died by suicide in November, just before the Thorns faced Chicago in the NWSL semifinals. Bixby shared the news publicly after the game, eliciting a flood of support from fans, friends and teammates. She played in the game despite overwhelming grief.

“Some of the comments at the time were, ‘Oh, you’re so strong,’” Bixby said this week while sitting in the stands at Providence Park, where she and her father would attend Portland Timbers and Triple-A Portland Beavers baseball games when she was a child. “That never really sat well with me because I just felt like playing was the only choice for me. Soccer has been one of the only stable things in my life. Every time I put on my boots and gloves, it’s the same game. The rules haven’t changed. In a week where my world off the field was crumbling and changing in so many ways, this was the only strand of stability I had.”

In the months since, soccer has continued to be a stabilizing force, Bixby said.

“I’m really lucky to feel that way,” she said. “Soccer isn’t necessarily my safe place, it’s just my place. It’s my routine. It’s my reality. I don’t forget what’s going on in my life, but it’s where I belong. I don’t know what I would have done after all that without soccer.”

Bixby’s soccer career began to flourish at Putnam, where she switched between playing her natural position of goalkeeper and scoring goals on the other end as an athletic and aggressive striker. Though club soccer was her primary focus as it gave her the best chance to play in college, Bixby and her husband, Eliott, met at Putnam, both as soccer players. When Bixby committed to Oregon State her sophomore year, it put her on a path to later attend college with Eliott, too. They didn’t decide together, but it worked out due to Eliott’s desire to attend OSU’s prestigious engineering school.

Bixby also tried her hand (or rather, foot) at kicking for the Putnam football team, and she went on to earn all-state honors as a kicker for the Kingsmen. One of her field goals was from nearly 40 yards out and sent a late-season game to overtime, which Putnam won in an upset.

“My teammates embraced me and encouraged me to try it,” Bixby said. “I was good at it. I thought it helped out my soccer game, and I thought my soccer game helped out my accuracy for field goals. I had some really cool opportunities in-game to kick some big field goals.”

Bixby finished her undergraduate studies at Oregon State and was drafted by the Thorns in 2018. She’s still hitting the books through OSU, though, pursuing a master’s degree in fish and wildlife administration.

“It’s something that’s definitely my passion outside of soccer,” Bixby said. “I’m really passionate about conservation, and I’m really passionate about how the public interacts with wildlife. Conservation psychology. How people choose to connect with wildlife and how we can connect more people with wildlife and conservation. It is hard to get ongoing professional experience because of our season.”

Bixby is balancing schoolwork with a professional soccer career, personal life and a new gig as head coach of the girls soccer team at Putnam.

Putnam went 8-4-2 last season under Bixby and finished the year ranked No. 8 in Class 5A before making it to the state quarterfinals. Thorns defender Emily Menges is the school’s junior varsity coach, and Bixby’s husband is her assistant coach on varsity.

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Hometown players making an impact is rare at any level of American soccer, but it adds a special element to a player’s connection with the club and its fans. That much is true for Bixby, who is coming into her own as the top goalkeeper for the Thorns. She started off the 2022 regular season with a clean sheet in a 3-0 win against the Kansas City Current.

The feeling of being at home in a comfortable space is still there for Bixby when she takes the pitch. But it isn’t the same, and it admittedly never will be. Bixby said she doesn’t allow herself to forget about her life outside the game, or forget about her father’s death and the conversation that needs to happen around mental health.

“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about it,” Bixby said. “I spend a lot of energy around how conversations around mental health and suicide need to change. I don’t have all the answers, and I’m just one person in a large demographic of people who’ve been touched by this in some way, but I think it’s something I want to talk about more.

“It’s opened up a door for me to have conversations with my teammates. It’s this scary thing because we look at someone who’s been touched by suicide, and no one knows what to do with you. No one knows how to try and take care of you. No one wants to ask about it. But talking about it helps, at least for me.”

And so Bixby will continue to talk. And listen. Smile, laugh, scream and cry. And make big saves. All for her home city.