Former U.S. national team standouts Megan Rapinoe, Jozy Altidore and Julie Ertz were among those elected to the National Soccer Hall of Fame on Thursday.
David Beckham, who helped grow soccer in the United States when he joined the LA Galaxy in 2007 and later as an owner of Inter Miami, was also voted into the Hall of Fame on the veteran ballot.
The group announced Thursday will be inducted on April 16 at the National Soccer Hall of Fame in Plano, Texas.
Rapinoe won a pair of Women's World Cup championships, an Olympic gold medal and the 2019 Ballon d'Or during her career. She was also honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in 2022.
She retired from the national team in 2023 with 63 goals and 73 assists in 203 appearances. She also played for the Seattle Reign in the National Women's Soccer League from the league's first year in 2013 until her retirement.
Rapinoe was elected on the Hall of Fame's player ballot in her first year of eligibility. Her family, friends, and a group of fans surprised her with announcement of her election upon her arrival off a flight at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
“To be alongside all the greatest players that have played for us, and played for our country alongside a bunch of my teammates and friends, recognized like that in this way just means you were successful and a part of great teams. So, I definitely was a part of some some great teams, and yeah, it’s very special,” Rapinoe said in a video posted to social media.
Altidore played in the World Cup twice and scored 42 international goals, to rank third in U.S. history, in 115 appearances for the national team. He also scored the winning goal for Toronto FC in the 2017 MLS Cup championship.
Ertz was considered among the best defensive midfielders in the world before her retirement in 2023. She played in three Women's World Cups and was named U.S. Soccer's Player of the Year twice. She also played professionally for the NWSL's Chicago Red Stars from 2014 to 2021, before a short stint with Angel City in 2023.
Known for winning six Premier League titles while with Manchester United, Beckham looms large in the game's growth in the United States. He won back-to-back titles with the Galaxy, scoring 18 goals in 98 appearances. He exercised his option to buy an MLS expansion team in 2014, and Inter Miami joined the league in 2020.
Tatu, a Brazillian forward who scored 857 regular-season goals over a 21-year indoor soccer career, was also elected to the Hall of Fame on the veteran ballot. He is just the third indoor player to receive the honor.
Former U.S. national team coach Lothar Osiander was elected to the Hall of Fame on the builder ballot. Osiander coached the senior national team from 1986-88 and the under-23 team from 1988-92. He also had stints as head coach of the then-San Jose Clash and the LA Galaxy.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/soccer
FILE - United States defender Julie Ertz (8) celebrates after scoring a goal against New Zealand during the first half of an international friendly soccer match in Commerce City, Colo., Friday, Sept. 15, 2017. (AP Photo/Jack Dempsey, File)
FILE - United States' Jozy Altidore celebrates in front of fans after scoring a goal against Panama during the first half of a World Cup qualifying soccer match, Friday, Oct. 6, 2017, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux,File)
FILE - United States' Megan Rapinoe celebrates after scoring her team's ninth goal during the Women's World Cup Group F soccer match between the United States and Thailand at the Stade Auguste-Delaune in Reims, France, Tuesday, June 11, 2019. (AP Photo/Francois Mori, File)
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A Texas man convicted of fatally stabbing and beheading three young children in a squalid, windowless apartment in 2003 was executed Thursday, hours after Oklahoma put another man to death.
John Allen Rubio, 46, was pronounced dead at 6:47 p.m. after a lethal injection at the state prison in Huntsville. The killings of the baby girl and two toddlers so rocked the city of Brownsville, on the U.S. border with Mexico, that the apartment building was later demolished and the land turned into a park and community garden.
Earlier Thursday, James Pavatt, 73, received a lethal injection at an Oklahoma prison for the fatal shooting of his girlfriend’s estranged husband in 2001. The victim was killed as he arrived to pick up his two young children before Thanksgiving.
Thursday’s executions were the 36th and 37th this year, with the U.S. on track to surpass 40 executions for a second consecutive year — a pace driven by Florida.
The death penalty has drawn renewed attention since the failed execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee in September. And last week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced he would commute hundreds of death sentences before leaving office in January — what experts say would be the largest mass clemency in American history.
Rubio and his girlfriend, Angela Camacho, were accused of killing 3-year-old Julissa Quesada, 14-month-old John E. Rubio and 2-month-old Mary Jane Rubio in the windowless apartment they shared in Brownsville. Camacho pleaded guilty and is serving a life sentence.
An appeals court overturned Rubio’s first capital murder conviction, ruling that Camacho's statements were improperly admitted as evidence in his trial. At his second trial, Rubio again pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity but was convicted and sentenced to death.
According to court records, Rubio wasn’t the biological father of the two older children but treated them as if they were his own.
At various points, Rubio claimed the children were possessed and that he was the “chosen one” intended to save the world.
Defense experts diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia, a finding prosecution experts rejected. The defense experts also testified that Rubio's childhood — marked by violence at home, “toxic” parents, drug use and prostitution — damaged him developmentally.
When the Oklahoma inmate Pavatt was asked if he had any last words before his execution, he shook his head no. As a chaplain read from the Bible, Pavatt appeared to mouth some words, but they could not be heard.
Pavatt was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the killing of Rob Andrew, a 39-year-old advertising executive. Pavatt attended the same church as the Andrew family and had been having an affair with Rob Andrew’s wife, Brenda Andrew. She was convicted at a separate trial and is the only woman currently on Oklahoma's death row.
Weeks before the shooting, Rob Andrew told police someone was trying to kill him after the brake lines on his car were cut. Brenda Andrew told police after her husband was killed that masked intruders shot her in the arm and fatally shot him.
Pavatt and Brenda Andrew fled to Mexico with her two children after the shooting and were arrested three months later while reentering the U.S.
At a clemency hearing last month, Pavatt said he was “not guilty of shooting anyone,” and that he’d fallen in love with Brenda Andrew and believed “everything she told me.”
“It was not until my trial that I began to see the extent to which I had been manipulated by Brenda,” Pavatt told the board. “I can see why the jury believed that we were both involved in Rob’s murder.”
Prosecutors have said Pavatt and Brenda Andrew plotted to kill her husband, and that no matter who fired the shots, both were equally guilty.
Also Thursday, former Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of being an accessory in a 1997 murder and awaits sentencing in December. Glossip, who had been on the brink of execution three times, was released on bond in May after nearly 30 years in prison. He had been awaiting a retrial after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction.
Stengle reported from McAlester, Oklahoma.
This photo provided by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections shows James Pavatt in Feb. 2023. (Oklahoma Department of Corrections via AP)
This photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows John Allen Rubio on Oct. 31, 2022. (Texas Department of Criminal Justice via AP).
